Birth of legends
by Soluxy
Summary: Naruto embarks on Jiraya's training trip, unsure about the future. A story focusing on the darkness of the shinobi world with difficult choices and cruel ends. Naruto won't turn a blind eye to the pain and misery around him anymore, he will fight for a just future. If he has to become the world's most powerful man then so be it. Naruto/Multi. Not your usual Godlike!Naruto.
1. Chapter 1

**Hello, Soluxy here, I've re-edited the first chapter, since the transitions didn't make it through publishing, so it was all a wall of text without scene breaks, but now it's fixed**

* * *

**Resolution**

* * *

Naruto opened his eyes, the sting of the burn marks he received was still there, his hands were gripping a headband, he raised himself from the pillow into an upright position.

He glanced at the headband with a horizontal cut, made by his sharp nails when he used the fox power.

_"I'm going to Orochimaru…"_

A boy with marks all over his skin, with cold red eyes, said that to him, with an indifferent tone.

_"Naruto… This… This is my only wish of a lifetime…"_

A crying girl, too weak to make any change, pleaded for him for things to go back to the way things were. A group of three, an idiotic brat, a broody brat, a screaming brat, and a lazy adult… Team 7.

There was no going back.

The thirteen-year-old glanced at his chest, the wound inflicted twice, one in his right lung, one below the heart, they were already healing, in a few days, there wouldn't be a scar left.

It was always like this, his body never blemished since he was little.

But the sting of betrayal was deep, for Sasuke to attack him so easily, to attack him so viciously without hesitation. Now that the dust was settled, and the battle was over, with Sasuke leaving… Naruto had a lot of time to ponder what happened back in that valley.

_Until the end… all your attacks were aimed to kill me, then why am I still alive?_

For the first time Naruto doubted their bond, in the valley he was fervently defending their friendship but now he doubted if he would feel the same if he ever were to meet Sasuke again.

_Sorry, Sakura… I don't think I can fulfill our promise…_

Naruto was only human, being ostracized in this village to the point of extreme lynching, he hid his worst emotions, but right now…

_Sorry, Sakura… next time he and I meet, I will probably rip his head off..._

Betrayal from his first friend, one who shared the pain of loneliness, and he abandoned the chance to overcome that loneliness so easily… Naruto had a lot of anger in his body, even though his posture was still straight, and his expression glum.

He was betrayed and angry, this bond, it wasn't friendship, it wasn't a close bond, what did he know of Sasuke? and what did the raven-haired boy know of him? It was all so stupid in the end, they connected through their loneliness, however, their petty rivalry always put a large barrier that couldn't be crossed.

It was hard going back to the goofball he was before, he always acted like this to make people look at him but what now?

When he was in the team, that was the default personality to fall back to, it was inoffensive and made people laugh instead of glare and cursing his existence, but after thirteen years he was tired of performing this act…

In the place of an overconfident and fun-loving Naruto was just a tired and angry teenager.

What he had in life was very little, you could count it in just one hand: his dream of becoming Hokage, a team that can't really become close, and the six people in the world who supported him, the number was six, but old man Hokage was already gone. So he now had five people in his life… Tsunade, Jiraiya, Shizune, Teuchi, Ayame, Iruka.

Losing Sasuke to Orochimaru was a hard blow, but Uzumaki Naruto still had so much to live.

And with a breath of determination, he leaped out of bed and started doing heavy exercises, the room had pipes going in the ceiling so it was easy to hang and do reverse sit-ups with his feet hanging on the bar.

Embarrassing to say, but Sasuke had the physical advantage in their fight, his punches and kicks were incredibly heavy and Naruto could only bridge the gap by using the fox powers and that was no real way to get stronger.

Relying on a hatred-filled fox to do the work for you was plain wrong… Naruto used it as a crutch and a trump card to win his fights, but that needs to come to an end, Naruto had to rely on his own strength going forward or there would be no saving himself from utter dependance... Naruto had to win his own fights with his own power from now.

If training until Naruto dropped dead would make him stronger, then he would drop dead a thousand times, he saw how hard Lee worked, it was time to take the boy's example.

* * *

**XOX**

* * *

After 90 minutes, the door was opened and entered a ninja with the standard jacket and a pineapple hair.

"No rest for the wicked, huh?"

"Shikamaru!" Naruto exclaimed, full of sweat as he dropped down from the ceiling, underneath the skin the muscles were already starting to heal from the power of his lineage and the sealed fox.

Naruto picked up the white patient kimono top and used it as a towel to wipe off the sweat.

"Man, here I am with a broken finger and fatigue, and you recover faster than I do, what a drag… anyways Naruto, is everything working?"

Naruto moved his arm and stretched his shoulder blade, making a loud crack, he did the same for his neck. "Yeah, I was tired of the bed, had to exercise some kinks off..." Naruto smiled a bit as they sat on the bed and started to talk.

"Hey, Shikamaru...I was in bed for a couple of hours, did everyone…?"

"Yeah, everyone came back, though Chōji and Neji are still in intensive care, they were… injured a lot more than me."

"Still, everyone made it out ok, that's a relief, and gra— Tsunade is here, she can care for them, don't worry, they'll pull through." Naruto wouldn't know what to do with himself if somebody had died in this insane mission... He would probably start hating Sasuke even more.

"...You're right," Nara Shikamaru exhaled a big sigh as if a tiny bit of worry and guilt escaped his body, then he looked at Naruto, instead of the blue azure eyes shining, they were cold as ice. Instead of the grin, there was just a small smile on Naruto's face as they settled.

After a moment, Shikamaru spied on Naruto as he made his question. "... Sasuke wouldn't…?"

"No… I tried everything, from convincing, pleading, negotiating… and finally fighting to bring him back, but I lost in the final strike."

Naruto looked down at the headband of his first friend, deep claw marks in steel.

_If_ at that moment, Sasuke wasn't wearing it in that final blow to protect his forehead… it was a shuddering thought, the claws at that time would rip apart his friend's skull and his first friend would be dead, at that moment Naruto was aiming to kill Sasuke, by cruelly ripping apart Sasuke's skull, Naruto was glad Sasuke wore his headband, he was truly glad.

"He's gone," Naruto said with a tired voice.

* * *

**XOX**

* * *

Outside of the room, Sakura's hand fell from the handle of the door, her eyes scrunched, bags under her wide eyes as she realized there was no going back to team 7, why would Sasuke abandon them, why was she so weak to rely on Naruto with such a cruel promise?

There was no going back to those fun days.

"Are you here to visit Naruto?" The clatter of the Hokage's sandals alerted the pink girl of the presence of her leader, the famous lady Tsunade, the best medic this continent has ever seen.

"You're Haruno Sakura of team 7? Kakashi talks a lot about you… Anyways, news travels fast.'' The Hokage's lips formed a smile, she was a beautiful woman in Sakura's eyes to be sure, beautiful and powerful unlike her, who had to rely on the sympathy of others to survive…

_I've not changed a thing, I'm so weak._ Such thoughts permeated her mind these couple of days.

Tsunade slid the door, revealing both Naruto and Shikamaru inside. Naruto seemed surprised to see his pink-haired teammate.

Sakura's eyes widened as she looked at her friend, golden hair, blue eyes, however, his face was full of bandages, his chest was like a mummy, Sasuke did this to him?

He did this to his teammate. Where was the boy that she loved, the Sasuke who was withdrawn _but_ still valued his friends, where has he gone, Was he dead?

Then, who was Sasuke now?

Naruto got hurt like this because of her request... because she was so weak.

"Naruto," Sakura uttered his name in pain, worried about him.

Naruto closed his eyes in anguish, searching for something to say. Shikamaru watched him, waiting for something to be said.

Tsunade went directly to the bed, and disrobed him, pulling apart the gauze, revealing first degree burns all over.

"Honestly, brat, just this morning these were three-degree burns from fire techniques hitting your body, you heal way too fast, a normal person would stay here being treated for burns for at least two weeks…" Tsunade's dainty medic hands glowed fervent green touching the few spots with bruises and healing the little burns scattered throughout his body.

Sakura looked at Tsunade working attentively, the desire to learn and mend Naruto was welling up inside, but Sakura had little training in medical techniques… Naruto got hurt because of her, she wanted to be a source of strength for her friend somehow, and seeing Tsunade with her big smile and light in her eyes as she teased and argued with her blond friend made her somewhat want to be in her position.

"Not to mention you had to heal two holes in your chest, that little Uchiha messed you up."

_Two holes? Holes, what?_ Sakura's eyes filled with anguish, there was no going back, Naruto was so hurt like this, she didn't know if she had the heart to forgive Sasuke now.

"Naruto… you don't..."

"Sakura. I'm… I'm sorry."

"Dummy, what are you apologizing for now? " Sakura went and opened the window. "The one who should apologize is Sasuke, not you… he put you in that state..."

"But I gave back as hard as I could, I hurt Sasuke so much in our fight… "

"... It doesn't matter Naruto… he chose to… to leave the village, it was his mistake, you shouldn't apologize." Sakura silently cried in front of them, for the loss of team 7, for the loss of her crush, for how badly Naruto was hurt for this.

"Sakura, I'll keep my promise… I never go back on my word, if I say I'm going to bring him back I will."

Sakura wasn't so keen on the prospect of facing her past crush, but Naruto gave her such a large grin that she couldn't help but smile back if Naruto wanted to bring his best friend back, then who was she to stop him?

"...I'll bring him back, even if it's in a body bag…" Naruto whispered, only Shikamaru and Tsunade heard him since they were in his bed.

The lazy Chūnin just scratched his neck, Shikamaru agreed with Naruto, Sasuke was a traitor and deserved what was coming for him.

Tsunade was petting Naruto's golden hair and sighed, she wasn't particularly close to the last Uchiha or any Uchiha ever, since she was the descendant of their rival clan, most of the village didn't care for the boy either, from what she heard from the Chūnin exam, people seemed to adore the last Uchiha but that wasn't the full case, once he was gone from the village, he was gone from people's mind,

Out of sight out of mind as it were.

Only a few rich council members and a couple of elders had a vested interest in the now-traitor, the council members wanted to marry their daughters to get their claws in the fortune left behind by a huge clan, the elders just wanted to restore the clan and wanted to push olden laws for it…

All the Uchiha boy's privileges, all favoritism was just superficial.

But that Uchiha boy had something genuine in team 7, to just abandon all that, he gathered no sympathies from Tsunade, he was now a traitor and would be treated as such.

_And so closes the history of the Uchiha clan, all the fortunes will be transferred to the village budget since the two members left are traitors, their knowledge and scrolls will go to the public eye, their clan shall be dissolved…_

_What would grandfather think of the Uchiha clan now?_ Tsunade asked herself, a bit somber.

"Naruto, I'm sorry you'll need to wait for a while, next time I'm coming with you." Sakura didn't want to face Sasuke again in her lifetime, but for the sake of her friend Naruto she would endure the pain.

* * *

**XOX**

* * *

After they left, Naruto once again pulled himself out of bed, now without the gauzes, he trained again, putting himself over the most extreme exercises he could think of in this tight space.

It was by dusk that pervy sage arrived by his window, they had an intense discussion over Sasuke and his fate, Naruto was unwilling to give up, he had to confront Sasuke again to confirm his feelings for his… friend, fortunately, by the hand of fate... Both Akatsuki and Orochimaru had to wait at least three years, then the Akatsuki would start to hunt him and other humans with sealed beasts inside of them, and Orochimaru would use his immortality technique on the last Uchiha.

Three years to train, three years to become great.

"...When you're discharged from the hospital, be ready, the next three years will be unlike anything you ever imagine" Jiraiya said this as he jumped to the toad's head outside of the window, then the toad readied his strong legs and jumped out.

* * *

**XOX**

* * *

Four portraits lined up, representing the Hokage, a burden only now Tsunade knew the full weight of. _As long as this great tree called the hidden leaf is entrusted to me, no matter what crisis may fall on the village, all of the duty and responsibility for its well-being is placed on my shoulders._

"This Hokage business is tougher than it looks, to think that brat wants to take the hat this badly, well I don't envy him if he does," Tsunade said with a smile.

_Then, I'll use everything, the leaf village will become an icon for the world, we shall lead by example and show the world what prosperity really looks like… _Tsunade promised to not fail, not now not in the future, this position has been entrusted to her by Naruto himself, she had to meet his expectations.

"It's been two weeks since that mission, Sakura is already focused on my training, time to visit the brat."

* * *

**XOX**

* * *

"Mr. Uzumaki, please drop the weights, you are still healing!" a medic said with sweat running down his face, that's the scene when Tsunade entered the room.

Naruto was suspended on the beam by one foot, while he held two massive weights on both arms, raising himself and meeting his hips as he raised his torso up and down, Tsunade could see his muscle mass had drastically changed from two weeks prior, he was sporting a toned body, but that's not possible, even for a ninja to build such a body would take at least two years of intense physical training and dieting.

"Naruto, how are you? Think you're ready to be discharged?" Tsunade asked.

"Lady Tsunade..." the medic exclaimed as he hadn't noticed her arrival.

"Yeah, I was ready to be discharged since two weeks ago!" Naruto flipped in the air, still holding the massive weights, and dropped to the ground with both naked feet, he carefully laid down the weights and went back to the bed.

"I see… then why aren't you discharged yet?"

"I don't know… ask this guy, he's been the one keeping me here!" Naruto pointed to the medic.

Tsunade had a pointed look at the medic.

The medic was quick to come to an excuse. "Lady Tsunade... Mr. Uzumaki, You have been hit by two A-rank Assassination techniques in the torso! We need time to observe any changes to your body!"

Tsunade sighed and approached the boy on the bed, and put her fingers on his chest as a green light lit up on her fingers, she noticed that most of his muscles were torn apart, yet were healing so rapidly, so fast… in less than a minute later, the metabolism was finished, every muscle fiber in his body was healed.

_So that's how he got this much muscle definition in such a short amount of time, his muscles did not need to rest… at all._ The only thing impeding him from strength training all day was stamina, and even then, he was wolfing down 12 meals per day by the reports, and those were not light meals.

Tsunade stroked the side of Naruto's hair. "Jeez, you consume too much hospital budget brat, well it's better this way than always eating ramen, carbohydrates and salt won't make you grow any taller brat…"

"R—Really?" Naruto said a bit nervously. A little-known fact that the boy was self-conscious about his height when compared to his peers.

"Really! If you only eat ramen then perhaps you will remain the size of a kid while the rest of your class grows taller and taller, if you don't want to remain 136 centimeters forever, I suggest you eat a lot and exercise a lot while you are away, just like you are doing here brat, since Jiraiya is going with you abuse his wallet to your heart's content, you have the permission from the Hokage!" Tsunade said with a smirk.

Naruto gave that large grin as well, and both started laughing together and closely, yes, their affection was like mother and son.

Later that day Tsunade personally discharged him, the healing from the fox more than took care of the boy's physical injuries. Naruto was happy to get out of the hospital, he never really liked the septic smell and gloomy atmosphere of a hospital.

* * *

**XOX**

* * *

Hot steam poured over Naruto's face as he dug in the newly made ramen from the Ichiraku shop, he was telling Iruka about how he was going on a long training trip outside the village.

"So you're going with master Jiraiya... How long do you think this trip will go?"

"Hrm, less than three years…"

_Naruto, you calmed down in these past few days, what is going on inside that head of yours?_ Iruka thought as he looked to the boy finishing his seventh bowl.

The golden-haired boy wasn't wearing his jacket anymore, just the orange pants and a black shirt. "Hey Naruto, where is your orange jacket?"

"Well, it was straining pretty badly on my arms and chest last time I wore, even this shirt and pants are stretching against my body, it's very uncomfortable, I guess I need to buy new clothes."

"Well, you are thirteen, soon enough you'll grow taller than me."

"You think so? I was the smallest of my class… Grandma Tsunade said that I need to eat less ramen and eat more whole foods during the day. So I started eating more veggies and eating a lot of meat, especially chicken."

"Hm, she might be right." Iruka supported his head with his hand as he watched Naruto finish...

"Hey! Even if she's Hokage I won't forgive her for driving away my favorite customer." Old man Teuchi ranted from the back, making Naruto, Iruka, and Ayame laugh at his statement

Jiraiya entered the booth and said to the blonde boy. "Let's get going Naruto."

"Right, I'm off Iruka, old man Teuchi, Ayame-chan."

Naruto gave his goodbyes to the closest people he had for a family in the village, the father-daughter duo gave him a warm farewell and Iruka just smiled at him.

_Naruto... I know you'll do your best… become strong, stronger than anyone._

* * *

**XOX**

* * *

As they arrived at the gate, Naruto turned to see his idol, the stone face of the fourth Hokage, he reached out with his more muscular arm and tightened a fist towards the face carved in stone.

"Watch me. I'll become the most powerful ninja in the world, stronger than you, in fact, I'll not give anyone the right to contest that title!"

"That's some ballsy words… I don't know if you'll be able to live to those words but I promise you this, you'll not have time to be lazing around for the next three years, you'll either be eating, sleeping, training, learning and always doing something…"

"I wouldn't settle for less… Jiraiya-sensei."

"Finally learning some manners brat? Here, let's go!"

* * *

**XOX**

* * *

They arrived in a festive town, summer is the season for festivals around Fire country, this small town had casinos, a red-light district, and a couple of inns, almost as big as Otafuku Gai.

It was the brink of the morning, so Naruto saw many people opening shops. Jiraiya made a few rounds around the shops, inviting Naruto to listen to their conversations.

Jiraiya told Naruto to learn from everything he saw Jiraiya do, for one hour that's exactly what Naruto did, a far cry to the loudmouth, Naruto stayed cleverly hidden, so well, in fact, an ANBU might have trouble detecting him.

He observed Jiraiya with open eyes, not just looking, not just hearing, observing every movement, listening to every inflection, seeing every expression to the minute changes in their facial expressions, he observed and learned, searing in his brain how Jiraiya extracted and manipulated people for information.

After that hour Naruto had a whole new dimension of knowledge for himself and respect for Jiraiya, the toad summoner was an impressive ninja in Naruto's opinion.

"You are impressive Naruto, you were able to absorb all that, I only reached your levels of observational skills by the time I was thirty. I don't know if I should call you crazy or insane, but you are thirsty, thirsty for knowledge and to improve yourself that is." Jiraiya petted his golden hair.

"When you said to watch, I didn't want any details of what you were doing to go to waste. I just..."

"You've matured so much in so little time, you are a remarkable child."

* * *

**XOX**

* * *

Leaving the town for a bit they arrived at a clearing filled with trees all around them, and a steep rocky hill on the side.

"When I was thinking on how to train you, my first thought was to have you control the fox's chakra, but time and time again you told me you don't want to rely on its powers, I agree with you, however, the enemies we're talking about are all S-rank..."

"But, the fox..."

"Yes, I know, then let's make a compromise, if you are unable to become an S-rank ninja by one year and six months, then we'll start learning the fox chakra… and if at any point you want to start learning about it, and understanding the fox spirit inside you, we can start at any time you want as well."

This one was a bit of a nasty promise, since Jiraiya himself knew that one year and a half was not enough to achieve the legendary status of S-rank, Jiraiya trained the legendary fourth and even the prodigy himself took some time to come into his own, but with a few tricks, it might just work, Naruto might just be the first to achieve it.

"I see, okay then, I'll become stronger than any of those S-rank criminals, hell I'll become stronger than that guy Itachi!"

"We'll see. Naruto, what do you know of your favorite technique, the Shadow clones?"

"Well, I use them to fight and overwhelm my opponents with them, they hit as hard as I do, and they can also use Rasengan, it's easy to replace myself with them to confuse my opponent and they are great to spring traps and other things."

"That's right, it's a very combat-convenient tool, but only for you, I have the greatest chakra reserves in the village at the present moment, and I can barely make 45 clones at once, how many you can make?"

"I never tested the limits of them… but it's close to two thousand clones."

…

…

"That is monstrous, but as I said, most people who learn the shadow clones don't use in combat-oriented ways, there is another function of the shadow clones, they can store memory and transfer them once they dispel."

"Transferring memories?" Naruto asked confused.

"I guess it's best I teach you with an example, here make a shadow clone."

Naruto obeyed his master and summoned a clone with the hand sign, Jiraiya did the same and the clones left the area, a few minutes later, Naruto widened his eyes and blushed.

"Oi! I don't need to know Tsunade's boob size!" shouted the blond ninja.

Jiraiya grinned and started his perverted spiel once again, but then Naruto realized that it wasn't him that got the information, it was his clone, he received his clone memories.

"You used them so quickly in a fight that you probably haven't paid attention, but they can be sources of information, you can send your shadow clone to gather information and they are perfect spies for short infiltrations, they can't do long ones since most of them can get easily dispelled by accident…"

Jiraiya then explained that they have been provided with a unique situation, shadow clones were heavy on chakra usage but it was no problem for Naruto, he could constantly put out more shadow clones, and since the shadow clones transmitted every single detail of its memory they made perfect tools for learning and practicing.

If Naruto was able to learn a thing in a year, then two Narutos could learn it in six months, three hundred and sixty-five Narutos could learn it in a day.

"Ten thousand hours. It is said that it takes ten thousand hours to completely master a skill, that's fifty-nine weeks of you doing that specific something, it is a lot of time, but with your two-thousand shadow clones, you can master a skill in _five hours_."

"But, what about memory backlash, won't my brain just fry with so much information?" Naruto was excited by the prospect but asked if the memory backlash or overload could kill him if he tried to train with more than two-thousand shadow clones at a time.

"No, memory backlash is not real, it doesn't exist. However, if a clone gets tired, the feeling of tiredness will return to you, you won't be physically exhausted, but your mind will think so, and that's dangerous."

Jiraiya denied the possibility, memory backlash was not real, a person cannot die of too many memories, however clones transferring their memories of fatigue was real and could cause accelerated or lowered heart rate, influence the mind in various ways and other side-effects that weren't really thought of, so they need to be careful in that regard.

The other weak point to this training was that strictly physical training was not possible with clones, so exercises to build strength, speed and endurance would have to be performed by the real Naruto.

* * *

**XOX**

* * *

With that in mind, Jiraiya started on the very basic, Knife and Shuriken throwing, Naruto summoned 1500 clones, each having replicas of his equipment, so no matter how many kunai or shuriken were tossed by the clones, it wouldn't matter since the originals were still in Naruto's bag, plus those clones of weapons were physical, therefore even if they were clones they would still pierce and cut and kill someone if hit.

This was another huge advantage of this versatile technique; he would never run out of tools as long as he replicated them through the shadow clone technique.

The 1500 clones started on throwing their weapons to the farthest tree, each time one clone made a breakthrough it would dispel and immediately be summoned again by the adjacent clone while transmitting that breakthrough throughout the other clones.

It was madness, something that Jiraiya was surprised to see close, even though he was the one who suggested this type of training.

The real Naruto and Jiraiya departed to another clearing, this one was large, with a shallow river, the area was more or less clear of trees.

"Summon 500 clones here, I'll summon three of my own, and I'll instruct them how to properly use Taijutsu, by the end of two years, I want you to put both Lee and Gai to shame in this area," Jiraiya said.

Naruto nodded and summoned more than 500 clones and with the guidance of the three Jiraiya clones, they started to battle the toad sage's clones.

The final part for today was the original Jiraiya guiding the original Naruto through extremely intensive physical and speed training, the toad sage first opened a set with brushes and with black ink made a few symbols on Naruto's naked top.

The tattoo was a special resistance seal that would grow heavier exponentially in set intervals, Jiraiya was informed about Naruto's muscles healing freakishly fast from Tsunade if that were true and Naruto's muscles didn't need resting then this was the perfect exercise tool for his physical brawn, speed and endurance all put into one.

Resistance seals were made to feel harder to move your body, like the sensation that you were walking underwater, it would break the muscles even faster than just adding weights since the force was so evenly distributed no muscles would be left underdeveloped.

Naruto, like Sasuke, were Genin, but in terms of physical prowess both were far above Chūnin, in terms of chakra, Naruto rivaled and even surpassed the Kage, now it was time to improve upon the natural advantages Naruto had been given.

* * *

**XOX**

* * *

As dusk arrived, Naruto was on his naked back, with sweat dripping from everywhere, he panted hard, his breathing loud, his bright blue eyes looked at the sky,

He could hit every target without missing. He didn't believe it, in less than 10 hours he could accurately hit any target with his kunai or shuriken, _no matter the distance._

"Hey, Jiraiya-sensei, isn't this cheating, I mean using shadow clones to improve myself so fast, isn't this supposed to be against the rules?"

"There are no rules to life, Naruto, cheating or not, being fair or not, those are just words, or do you think those born in clans are cheating those who weren't? Are you going to say the Sharingan that Kakashi and your friend uses, is cheating as well? If I remember they can reproduce all matter of Ninjutsu if they see it once, they have a terrific advantage in Taijutsu and Genjutsu thanks to those eyes, if shadow clones can be considered unfair then where does that leave the Sharingan?"

"B—But..."

"Listen Naruto, everyone has advantages and disadvantages in the world, however what I dislike is people wasting their potential, and you have the potential to be greater than I've ever imagined. You shouldn't waste your potential because you consider this method of training a shortcut or a cheat. After all, it isn't, you are working extremely hard for your strength and don't let anybody else say otherwise."

"Y—You're right."

"Now, to the final and most brutal part of your daily training regimen."

Naruto's chakra was back but he was brutally exhausted, with the seals weighing him down, yet he raised himself to meet the final challenge of the day.

With his pool of chakra, he was ordered to summon the maximum number of clones that he could in a huge clearing which was 3000.

"This part of the regiment is to give you experience in survival, and experience in real battles, if all goes right, this part of the training will skyrocket your power to the limit, this will make you strong so fast it won't be a joke, if you survive that is..."

Naruto learned early that Jiraiya wasn't soft in the training, he knew how to push the blond child's body to the limits since Naruto had advantages for being an Uzumaki and a host to the fox spirit making normal training ineffective.

"This will be the hardest part of your training for the next three years, you against all your clones, _in a fight to the death_, every day after training and exhausting your body, that's your last training for the daily routine."

Naruto looked at all his clones, as they slowly surrounded him, still hesitant to follow through Jiraiya's command, it wasn't a battle royale, no.

It was him against a massive army of opponents of identical skill, he had to hit them once to dispel, however each one of them had identical power to him, identical tools, and it would be easy for him to die by 3000 clones of him.

He used them to overwhelm opponents far more powerful than him, but now they were going to overwhelm him, who had a similar level of power. No matter what happens, this was going to end in his death, wasn't it?

Jiraiya was uncaring as Naruto was slowly surrounded, with clones arranging their weapons, clones preparing traps and other devious plans to have the original killed, this was a fight to the death.

"Start," Jiraiya said and vanished from the clearing as roars from the clones as they charged Naruto, as they made multitudes of Rasengan with the help of other clones.

The only mindset the original had as his doom approach was to survive, by all means necessary.

* * *

**XOX**

* * *

The moon signaled it was 10:00 PM, Jiraiya approached a large stone hill, full of craters all around the ground, a flurry of kunai and other weapons piercing the ground, it was almost a war site, and in the middle was Naruto, the original, deathly still, his torso was full of blood.

The boy had done it, against an army of opponents with similar strength, every time one poofed out of existence, the original as well as every clone learned from that clone's mistake, every clone, and the original becoming incrementally stronger and more experienced, as well as more hard to kill.

So it would always end up with Naruto fighting against his equals, **_it would never become easier,_** he had to improve himself faster than his clones improved themselves to kill him, and once they dispelled, he learned of their improvements as well, becoming a frenzied cycle of self-improvements to find ways to survive and to kill.

A dance of pure madness with the alternative being death.

Jiraiya showed his presence to the boy and was immediately attacked by the boy, since Naruto had been running by instinct all this time to survive, for the next ten minutes Jiraiya was overwhelmed by how far the boy has come from just this one session, the boy right now would give seasoned Jōnin hell to pay, and he was still a genin, his newly gained experience drove Jiraiya into traps, had perfect moments to strike with Rasengan and his weaponry usage was scary accurate.

In just a day, this boy became so strong, something Jiraiya thought he would take at least six months before his inspiration to incorporate Shadow clones. This boy was remarkable indeed.

Jiraiya knocked him out quickly and slung the bloody boy's body over his shoulder. The boy had stopped more than four times to eat just this afternoon, however, something told Jiraiya that the boy would be hungry for some more food.

* * *

**XOX**

* * *

By the time Naruto had woken up, Jiraiya was still carrying him towards the village, the sweat that clung to his body was cold now and he was tired, the blood was dry against his body and he was shivering. After a mighty dinner at a pub, Naruto was now recovered enough to walk.

After a soak in the bathhouse, both were walking on the streets together.

"Hey, Jiraiya-sensei, are we going to spend our night in the inn, or camping outside?"

"Idiot! Now that Tsunade isn't here, and we aren't on a mission, why should we spend the night on a bland inn or camping outside?!"

"If not on an inn, or outside, then where? Do you have houses here?"

"It's a house in certain terms, but certainly not mine."

As they walked, Naruto saw more casinos, and signs, the district became more lively, women were walking around with raunchy yukatas and all manner of men being entranced by them, and the women were young too, there were girls his age mingled in too.

"It's time for you to learn one of the three vices of a ninja, women, for the next threee years you and I will be spending our nights on whorehouses, brothels, of course in different rooms, I suspect you'll be well acquainted with the female body once this training trip finishes…" Jiraiya laughed perversely as he guided the shy and concerned Naruto to the red-light district.

Naruto sweat dropped and internally screamed in embarrassment.

"As I said, this training trip will be nothing like you have seen before!" Jiraiya belly-laughed.

* * *

**XOX**

* * *

"My name is Kiyomi, I will be in your care tonight, Naruto-sama" A black-haired beauty who was older than him announced as they sat on the bed, she had white yukata who was very loose, showing her big breasts up until midway, a hint of pink was revealed on her cleavage, she had a killer mature body with a wide ass that kept straining her yukata and long legs were tantalizing.

"And I am Setsuna, I will also be in your care tonight!~" An energetic girl of his age spoke she had short brown hair decent sized breasts covered by her flame-like yukata, and a very peachy butt

"My name is Luna, p— please take care of me!" a girl younger than him with straight blonde hair flat chest but amazing thighs.

They approached him and all he could do was internally scream.

His first night on the training he lost his virginity to three ladies. As the morrow arrived, the three ladies were comatose by the pleasure given by the massive tool hidden in Naruto's pants, never in their whole life had they been more satisfied by sex than fucking a member of the Uzumaki clan, famous for their virility and vitality.

* * *

**XOX**

* * *

"These past two weeks have been all about the basics of being a ninja, now it's time to focus on your big-hitting techniques!"

"Cool, I can't wait to learn a bunch of new ninja techniques, with my shadow clones I can put Kakashi's arsenal to shame!" Naruto exclaimed.

"It seems you have a lot of misconceptions about combat still, what does learning hundreds of techniques do to you?"

"Huh?"

"People think that having a giant arsenal of Jutsu is going to make them stronger, that's not a great mentality to have, even Kakashi, or Sarutobi-sensei, who both had thousands of Jutsu under their belt don't use all of them, even those two default their attacks to three or four Jutsu at a time and if pushed they might use ten different Jutsu in a fight, and here is the catch, they use the same selection of Jutsu no matter what!" Jiraiya exclaimed.

Jiraiya continued with passion for the subject. "Kakashi, the copy ninja who mastered a thousand Jutsu, that was only in the name, when real combat begins, people default to what they are comfortable with. Remember those Akatsuki who targeted you? Kisame is a master at Kenjutsu and a few big-hitting water techniques that take advantage of his enormous chakra, Itachi defaults to Shurikenjutsu, Genjutsu and fire techniques who are low cost but potent and deadly using the right situation… Orochimaru defaults to his snake summons, clones, and his poisonous swords, even with his Jutsu obsession…. You won't become stronger by learning a multitude of techniques." Jiraiya finished the lecture on the topic.

"Then what do I do? I only have, what? the two techniques I learned from the academy, transformation, and substitution, then, later I learned the shadow clones and the Rasengan as well as the summoning Jutsu, can I become strong just from this?"

"Yes you can, listen, people during battle use only what they are familiar with, be it their sword, be it their earth Jutsu, what you need is a small but incredibly powerful and versatile arsenal, and the Rasengan as well as the shadow clones, are more versatile and powerful than any old Jutsu produced by a long hand sign."

Naruto somewhat understood, having his head filled with techniques and not knowing how and where to use them could lead to a lethal hesitation in battle, Naruto sighed, his dream of wielding ten-thousand Jutsu was thrown in the backburner for now.

"I see, then what are we going to do?"

"The Rasengan!" in an instant a ball of chakra was formed in Jiraiya's hand and he smashed it on a tree, obliterating it. "The Rasengan is a self-sustaining, A-rank destructive Jutsu, a ball of chakra that grinds its targets, it is also the ultimate chakra manipulation and control training."

"Your Rasengan training is still incomplete, and there are plenty of faults with your Rasengan.

For the next few months, I want you to master it, and find a way to improve it, make it more versatile, make it more powerful, this additional task is your own.

I'm not going to help you in any way, think of it as your extra assignment on top of the usual regiment, though that will soon be changing."

Improve the rasengan?

Was it still incomplete?

What was missing from his rasengan?

* * *

**XOX**

* * *

Jiraiya left the area with 500 or so clones of Naruto to train in other areas of expertise, Naruto took a sitting position on the ground to think hard, he had to complete the Rasengan training, take out any mistakes, and improve it.

What was he doing wrong was obvious, he needed another shadow clone to make the Rasengan, that extra step was slow in combat situations, wasn't it?

With his mind made up, he summoned 4500 clones and the small army started trying to make the Rasengan possible without relying on two Narutos.

The original Naruto started doing his physical training while watching the multitude of shadow clones.

By thirty minutes he and his shadow clones were able to make the Rasengan by themselves, just that he still needed both hands, and Jiraiya was able to do it with only one. However, that was not enough.

"I need to create the Rasengan with only one hand, the ultimate chakra control exercise, huh? My chakra control was so shoddy, but ever since I learned this and water walking, I've been lasting longer in fights, I've been able to produce more clones every day, now it's time to complete it."

Naruto got up and ordered the clones to find a way to make it with only one hand.

He pressed on the seal tattoo on his chest and increased the resistance seal by a large margin manually, it was so brutal that it forced him on his knees, however, nothing would be achieved if he didn't push himself.

* * *

**XOX**

* * *

Three days passed, Jiraiya stood in the clearing after lunch in the afternoon, he glared at Naruto.

"Now, show me how your Rasengan is coming along, child." Jiraiya put himself on a fighting stance, Naruto took a step back, Jiraiya's fighting spirit affected him, and it made him fear his mentor, Jiraiya's harsh eyes didn't make anything better.

_What brought this on? Why is he so aggressive?_ A roll of sweat dropped from Naruto's face, as Jiraiya charged and sucker-punched Naruto faster than anything he ever saw, it was just basic survival instincts that made Naruto avoid the attack by making a last-minute clone and substituting himself with it, the experience of those nightly death matches between his clones made him have the survival instinct of a seasoned Jōnin.

"You're already as strong as a Jonin, however the way you are now, you're still far away from being an A-rank, not to mention S-rank, child…" Jiraiya went behind him, Naruto activated his trap of shuriken, only for the sage to just avoid it all.

Naruto summoned three clones to meet Jiraiya's first blow for blow, but even with four powering through, Jiraiya's right still blew them apart, making the original take a hit, blowing Naruto several meters back, rolling on the grass painfully.

Jiraiya walked slowly towards Naruto as dozens of clones surrounded him, while Naruto charged his Rasengan on one hand only, without help from another clone, and without needing both arms.

Jiraiya scoffed, and in an instant, all clones were defeated as he closed the distance between him and the blond, Naruto widened his eyes in pure fear and thrust the Rasengan towards his teacher's face but was met with an equal instant Rasengan from his teacher.

Naruto widened his eyes further as he pumped more chakra into his Rasengan, but Jiraiya didn't even flinch as the clash was resolved when Naruto's arm was pushed back and he was sent rolling, gashing the grass until he hit the stone hill and was pushed back further into the rock as blood seeped from his arm and mouth.

Naruto looked at his teacher, he was still in the same position from the Rasengan clash, with the ball of chakra in his hands still flowing pristinely.

"Three days of clone usage and that's what you got to show for it, just add more chakra to the Rasengan? And you think that's improving it? Don't make me laugh, you still haven't even completed the simple Rasengan,"

"B—But I did it, I can make a Rasengan in one hand now!"

"Do you think that's all it takes to be a master at it? You're not even halfway into it yet, look at my Rasengan, and look at what you can do, there isn't a difference in the chakra used, then why did my Rasengan win when you pumped more chakra into yours later on? There is a final fourth stage for completing the A-rank destructive technique that I haven't talked about yet, not even Kakashi who copies everything could master the fourth step, his Rasengan is as pathetic as yours."

"T—Then what is it, the fourth step? The first was forming the vortex, the second was about power, the third was putting a film of chakra around it so it won't burst, then what's the fourth step?!"

"As I said, you must discover that for yourself, it would be meaningless to try to tell you, you are the most unpredictable ninja of the leaf, are you not? Then live for your namesake and think outside the box… It took the fourth Hokage 3 years to make the Rasengan, and the fourth step was what gave him the hardest time for a reason! Well, I can give you a hint, a small one… "

Jiraiya pointed the still pristine Rasengan in his hand. "The Rasengan is a self-sustaining Jutsu."

* * *

**XOX**

* * *

It took two weeks for Naruto and the other clones to make a breakthrough, they recalled every moment that Jiraiya said anything about the Rasengan, and they have been training relentlessly on the technique.

The only glaring difference he could first notice was how Jiraiya instantaneously summoned his Rasengan mid-charge, the blond ninja couldn't do that, he needed a few moments to charge it, and he had to be stuck in place to do it.

Jiraiya filled his hand with the Rasengan immediately without delay, faster than he could blink, in mid-rush, no… he raised his hand to meet Naruto's Rasengan, _an empty hand_, and it formed immediately to counter it.

With that in mind, Naruto went to train his speed of casting, by the fourth day he could summon his Rasengan without any delay, in any position, in any hand, he only had to have an outstretched palm to do it.

To prove that he could do it, he put a hand on the tree trunk and the Rasengan formed inside of the tree, imploding the bark, making the upper part of the tree fall to the ground, and his Rasengan immediately vanished after that attack because of the resistance of the tree.

Something finally clicked, the fourth stage… a self-sustaining destructive ball that grinds anything and everything, even chakra.

"That reminds me, his Rasengan never vanished… it never vanished even when it hit my Rasengan who had the same amount of chakra..."

This was the breakthrough, somehow, Jiraiya's Rasengan stayed pristine, even when meeting an equal force, while his just blew away after a few moments.

Self-sustenance, if the third step was learning about control with the small amount of film enveloping it, then what would happen once that small film met a target? It would dissolve and the Rasengan would hit the target with explosive grinding power, but the film wouldn't return to the Rasengan, and it would be spent, with no control over the torrential grinding force of the Rasengan… it would just disappear after the first impact with something.

This was a major difference, Jiraiya's Rasengan wouldn't disappear no matter how many targets he hit, yet Naruto's would.

Then the fourth stage was removing that film and controlling the torrential nature of the Jutsu all by his own will, stabilizing it and sustaining it without the small film of chakra around it. That's why it was the hardest part, almost impossible even for geniuses like the Fourth, that's why it took so long for the man to create the Jutsu.

A Rasengan who won't disappear, this was the next step to finally master the Rasengan, and then... He had a time limit to then find new ways to improve it, but with shadow clones he knew it could be done, he just had to believe in himself and never relent.


	2. Chapter 2

**Hello, Soluxy here with another chapter!**

* * *

**The Zodiacs**

* * *

The end of the first month, they had moved to the second town when a bird arrived on Jiraiya's shoulder. He used that to communicate to the leaf village, then he presented a green scroll to Naruto.

"It's finally time for you to be a proper ninja, the classic bandit camp, most genin and chunin teams pass this stage, it's a defining moment in most of the ninja of the leaf, although you don't have a team on this mission, nor will I hold your hand through it."

"What's the mission? What do I do in that camp?"

"It's simple, you have to track where this group of bandits are staying in the region, and then exterminate every single bandit, if they have hostages or slaves you are to recover them immediately after you finish the camp…. That's usually how it goes"

"Killing people… I see." Naruto closed his eyes.

"Haven't killed before? it's in your job description."

Koyuki-chan's uncle came to mind when he hit him with the rasengan, as well as others who have been killed in similar ways. "No, I have, but I'm not used to it, I guess."

"Nobody is. There are more detailed information on the scroll, you still have to track where they are, how many there are, any other foreign dangers to the mission, and you need to come up with a plan to exterminate them"

"I need to do all that?"

"Yeah, and without teammates and a mentor, it's time to use your head Naruto."

A search and destroy mission, with his dog summons Kakashi would have no trouble, but Naruto was completely alone in this.

Using Jiraiya's interrogation and info gathering social skills and using his shadow clones was all he had.

The mission had a time-limit of thirty days, designed by the client who was the samurai in charge of the region. A big reward if the bandit camp was found, an even higher reward if the bandits were all killed.

When he asked about it.

"The samurai don't want to lose their members in a raid, so if we kill the bandits for them instead of giving their location, they'll give more money."

All in the name of cost-effectiveness, samurai were employed by the state, much like the ninja were, they were basic public security, however many of the members were less than genin, just sons of farmers who took up the job of protecting the cities and villages around Fire country.

The elite of the samurai who measured up to jonin, were employed by nobles and the Daimyo's family in the capital.

The Daimyo family…and nobles, huh…? Lately, Naruto's thoughts were focused more on the world around him, instead of what was just in front of him.

* * *

**XOX**

* * *

Mizuno watched the crackling fire in front of him.

His comrades were all sitting around the campfire, singing boastful stories. Laughing and drinking to their heart's content.

He was an older man, in the business for more than 20 years, on his youth, he was brash like them, boasting about lies, fucking women, a greedy bastard as well when raiding homes. Now he was just tired of this life as a criminal.

"Serizawa, how's the booze?" he asked the lad on his side, a youth called Manabu Serizawa

"Great, Mizuno-senpai, that farm had some great sake hidden don't you think so?"

"Yeah..."

Serizawa was a son of a poor man from Tawatoro, a city nearby, he joined some three months back, he was not a hardy youth, hiding his fear as bravado, he said he liked the booze, but to get it, the bandits raided a poor farmer's home, killed the bastard in front of the wife and son, and raped both of them.

That's how things worked here, raid people for their money and supplies, capture the woman and children for sale on the black auction.

A man like Serizawa shouldn't be working on the other side of the law in the first place, he was weak in the knees and got sick of their actions but hid well, he was just here to support his elderly dad, since the life of a bandit seemed more profitable than the life of a beggar. As his elder, Mizuno pitied the young man, he didn't have the greed or cruelty of other bandits, he was a young man put in a difficult spot for many.

Being a beggar or a bandit didn't have much difference in the eyes of the law either, in Fire Country a samurai may as well cut both of them down as soon as they see it. All for the sake of public beauty that the Daimyo ordered, beggars would get their heads rolling down the sidewalk if a samurai passed by.

People didn't care for beggars in this country, that's why this youth joined the band.

"Serizawa..."

"Hmm, what is it, senpai?"

"No, I'll tell you later." Mizuno took a swing of the drink, drowning his sorrows in booze, he felt like an old soul haunted by all of the evil around him.

Then, a man with a short goatee walked rapidly out of the main tent, with a face of a slimy snake oil vendor, he was a man named Terada, and he was as sneaky as he looked.

"Terada, what did you do?"

"Noo… I was tryin to get a little financial help for my visits to the brothels on 'Toro, but I was unlucky, the boss is a bit mad since our losses in the raid near Tea Country."

"Hrm, that makes sense, but he must be very mad if he took out his frustration on you"

Terada was a very convenient snake for the boss, he was a thin man with no fighting capabilities, however he made it up with strategies and info gathering.

What was cruel though is that this band had a new boss since a year ago, the old boss was killed and replaced by this big-shot missing ninja from the Grass Country.

Mizuno mourned the death of his old boss Baisho-san, this whole slave trade started because of the new boss, Baisho-san had a shoddy, but noble morals.

Now they were just a band of bastards who shouldn't be living.

Mizuno disliked Terada for one simple reason, Baisho-san was very close with Terada, almost as if both were best friends, but when the new boss took Baisho-san's life, Terada sucked up to the new boss as soon as that happened.

While many of the old guard mourned the death of Baisho-san, Terada was a slimy bastard who clung to the new boss without mourning Baisho-san, that's why many of the older generation in this band hated Terada, Mizuno himself included.

"Many hate Terada-san, but why?"

"It's an old story, Serizawa."

"Hrm, but he always plans things out for us, and we haven't had a single loss since he took the strategist role."

"Yeah, he's a smart one. No denying that."

"And… he's a better human being, he doesn't use the girls we capture for pleasure, unlike the others in this band." the young man sighed and took a large sip of booze.

"Idiot, he thinks that the women we capture are tainted and filthy, about to be sold as slaves, he prefers whores in the city than slaves, that's just how he works, that man."

"Hrmmm, is that how it is with him."

"Yeah, now let me enjoy the booze brat." Mizuno complained and sucked every drop out of his cup and slammed it on his leg with a tipsy look.

Serizawa just looked at the thin man called Terada, walking away from the camp to go to the city to sleep on the brothels there. After a while he joined the party around the fire.

* * *

**XOX**

* * *

The madam bowed to Naruto as he arrived. "We've been expecting you Naruto-sama."

The madam of this establishment was wearing a heavy Yukata with a flowery Haori around her, she was kneeling and bowing down to his arrival.

"Nozomi, thank you for being so kind to me these past few weeks."

"No, Naruto-sama, you are our celebrated guest, the apprentice of Jiraiya-sama, we welcome your patronage anytime, plus many of my girls are overjoyed when you arrive."

Naruto had a pink hue at her words, madam Nozomi was the manager of this establishment, this was a brothel he visited most nights when he was training around these parts.

"Now, Naruto-sama, all of my girls are very eager for your care tonight, how many of them do you wish for?"

"Actually Nozomi, I need a favor..."

After investigating around town, he found that while the band of criminals remained elusive, there was one loose link, a man regularly went around the brothels of this town. Naruto has been on the lookout since yesterday and when he received this information he sent out clones to cover all brothels in town, and since he was acquainted with many madams of this area he had a distinct advantage in this mission.

"...I understand, the gentleman you speak of, I know him, his name is Terada-san, he usually comes on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, however I heard he frequents other establishments when he's short on cash..."

"So he will come tomorrow huh?"

"You can monitor him tomorrow if you wish, Naruto-sama, the gentleman doesn't deserve customer privacy when the gentleman is involved in crimes such as slave trade." Nozomi spoke calmly, but she had a vein popping on her forehead of how angry she was at the mere mention of slave trading.

Brothels in seedier areas bought slaves to fill their roster, and that was a practice she hated with all her heart, in her mind her girls needed to enjoy their job, have dignified wages and not be an abused slave.

Madam Nozomi took the high-road in an industry of cruelty, and Naruto respected that.

She started the tea ceremony in the tatami mat and Naruto sat in front of her, admiring her work, when she was done, she took a breath out of her long pipe.

"Naruto-sama, it is quite late already, and since the gentleman you're pursuing will only come tomorrow, would you like to spend the night with us?"

Naruto had a tender look at the madam. "Yeah."

She gave him the brightest smile. "My girls will be overjoyed."

* * *

**XOX**

* * *

Serizawa was a young man who wanted simpler things in life, he wanted to work for his poor father, but never found any work in the respectable world, being poor and no education made him be forced to a life of begging or thievery. Both quite likely to be cut down by the samurai employed by the Fire's Daimyo.

He knew of this and thus he turned to the life of a criminal, working for a band of slavers, honestly there were nights where he could barely stomach the job.

The part where they raided small villages and settlements was easy, kidnapping people, murdering people, he could stomach all that, what he couldn't stomach was the men around him of the same age reveling in raping women and kids.

Young men barely old enough to drink, who were scared of the job a few months earlier now enjoying the cruelty.

Serizawa wonders if some day in the future he would become a monster like his peers. Even after months he cannot even look at the women and children in the cages that he captured. He hasn't raped anybody yet, and wonders if it's only a matter of time.

As he sits again with Mizuno-senpai tonight, he was glad that the older man took him under his wing, Mizuno is an honorable man, part of this band before the new leader arrived, or so he tells him in his stories of the past.

However Mizuno, who is a high ranking bandit within this band, and Terada-san who also boasts the same are always at odds. Some nights, the strong and wise Mizuno has this hatred within his eyes for the weak and thin Terada.

Serizawa has no clue how their relationship has gotten this far, last night, just asking around he got some sense, it seems that everybody respected the old boss Baisho-san, that he was very close with the thin man Terada, best friends, they told him. However when the new boss killed Baisho-san, Terada had a sudden change in demeanor, and snaked his way into the new boss's graces.

Hearing the story, Serizawa was convinced of the situation, Mizuno and Terada were very different people, they were water and oil, one was honorable, the other was a slimy snake.

"Slimy snake Terada-san" Serizawa whispered in silence,

After dinner he put his hands on his ears, not wanting to hear the screams of the new woman being gang-raped in the tents by his peers of the same age.

* * *

**XOX**

* * *

After a few hours following the man around, Naruto found the camp, stationed a few clones to scout the band of bandits, roughly fifty-seven criminals, thirty-six slaves.

The criminals were mostly men within the age of seventeen to forty, no specialized training in chakra from what he noticed.

Following Terada-san in the morning after he left the brothel was the right choice, he was the most involved with the camp's leader.

"None of you will survive, come tomorrow night." Naruto promised that.

* * *

**XOX**

* * *

Terada walked towards the camp, his preparations were made, as he lopoked to the paper, he had made enough money for the eventual release of the slaves, and the death of his new leader.

Many people thought he was a slimy snake that ingratiated himself with the new leader Okube, but they were wrong on one account, it wasn';t to save his own skin, or get into a privileged position, it was all so he could get revenge for Baisho-san. Terada wasn't a strong warrior that could contend with a missing ninja such as Okube, but he could work behind the scenes and make a plot to kill the new leader.

Terada was truly Baisho-san's best friend, after all this time, he never forgot his old leader, therefore he never would forgive Okube for killing him. It didn't matter how many years it took him, he only had two objectives in life, have Okube die no matter what, and save the slaves in the auction houses happening all ove4r the continent.

Yes, Terada, hidden from his peers and his new boss actually helped the slaves live a better life, and helped them during their suffering, for that the slaves in the camp were ever grateful to him.

Now, after two years, he finally had the money to hire a team from the village hidden in the rock.

Terada walked happily into the camp, however part ways, her fell on the ground, like a marionette with the strings cut,

A simple bloody kunai behind his neck.

He gave one last whisper, as he didn't know what had occured.

Then pain for just a second.

Then death followed.

A clone approached from behind and hid the body, while he did his job, the clone took the paper from the man's hand, highlighting the plan he was concocting.

The clone of Naruto widened his eyes, as he looked at the body, a measure of guilt reached his eyes, however he soon thought more about it. Terada-san was a hypocrite.

The clone let the paper fall on the man's body, and dispelled.

* * *

**XOX**

* * *

Naruto overlooked the slave pens full of women, little girls and boys, naked and abused. The original Naruto up in the trees while the clone set up flaming traps to encircle the camp and don't let anybody escape.

Then the memories from the clone returned to his body.

"So you were a good person all along, Terada-san, you wanted revenge from your old boss, however you spent two years forming strategies for raiding vi;llages and hamlets, killing husbands and capturing wives and children, even if you wanted to help, what did you expect in the end, that you'd be patted in the back?"

Naruto closed his eyes in apoplectic rage as he took a look at the slaves, it was hard to describe what he was feeling in the moment. "It feels like nobody knows what true justice is in this world. Not even me."

"Before I set the traps alight, I need to rescue these people, to think these women and children have been suffering while nobody was none the wiser, these bandits are despicable." Naruto was young, barely fourteen, however he was creating a code of honor, high morals that he wanted to follow of his own will and he couldn't forgive these men for doing this.

His clones surrounded the slave pens, carefully sniping the bandits with kunai on the back of their skulls, then without frightening them too much, Naruto's warm chakra enveloped the slaves as he approached them to free them. With a golden smile he helpfully led them out of the pens, calming down any hysterical victim, and soothing those that were crying that he saved them.

The clones led them out of the camp site undetected and moved them towards a clearing five-hundred meters away to tend to their injuries and needs, all the while his clones exuding charisma and warm aura to calm them down.

The original who was still back in the camp.

"No more innocent people in the camps... and set alight..." he made a quick hand sign with one hand to activate the seal formulas scattered around, every single one unleashed a small flame out of them, but they were many and put in vulnerable areas, with a dry chilly wind the embers quickly spread, making any exit impossible for a non-shinobi.

Naruto with a hand sign quickly summoned fifty clones and as the bandits scurried out of their tents they were met with a clone with kunai in hand, the clones quickly disposed of the offending bandits, with Naruto looking sad at every death, while going for the kill he had no usual hesitation that he learned many ninja had when they went for the kill. But he always had a sad look about him.

Even if these people were irredeemable beasts.

A youthful bandit tried to run, but a clone went behind him and punched him in the spine so hard it ruptured his organs and blood vessels.

The massacre continued for a few minutes, as an older man kneeled at the youth's corpse. "Serizawa!" the man screamed with tears running down his face, Naruto thought it was touching, even beasts like him had human emotions.

"He was just, wanting to help his father, he never acted cruelly, why?!" He grasped the youth's hand in a touching moment, between a father figure and his dead child.

The older man roared to the sky in rage and met a clone with a sword. "You killed Serizawa! You bastard die, die, die!"

The clone parried the strike with a simple kunai, not having any emotion displayed.

"He came before me! — to me yesterday, he didn't want to work here anymore, he said the screams were getting to him, I— I wanted to smuggle him out of this damned job, it's all been shit since Baisho-san died and— " He forced his sword but couldn't make the young ninja care.

"I don't care, old man" he punched the older man hard on the temple, his whole skull cracked as the air whiplashed on the other side of the punch.

"Ack! Haah.. Ahakh kh Ah- Haaah Haa..." the man cried on the ground, as his vision darkened, he tried to crawl to his young ward, but couldn't even take the first step, Mizuno died with his hand extended towards Serizawa.

Naruto didn't even bat an eye to this scene... those that pillage, and murder shouldn't complain when the same happens to them. However he pitied the young man who couldn't find another way to live and had to work as a criminal.

"What, I thought it was a ninja team attacking, but it's just a brat!" A man opened his tent, he scratched his eyes as if he just got out from the bed, his hands helped his head stretch from side to side, he was a tall man with a built body, tanned skin.

He was carrying a scythe and chain with him, and on the other a sealed scroll.

"Who are you?" Naruto asked, looking at the scratched metal band on his forehead, a ninja from the Grass.

"Tch, haven't heard of me brat, I am Okube-sama, the greatest ninja of the grass village." He stated, he was a missing ninja from that village, A-ranked jonin, capable of mass murder and kidnappings.

"Never heard of you old man, anyways mine name is Naruto, the one who's going to end you." Naruto said in a matter-of-fact as the fire closed all around them, now only the embers flew on the wind, this closed arena, full of bodies on the ground, and as bright as if it were day.

"Watch your words brat, I am an A-rank missing ninja, I'll enjoy hanging your dry body on a tree later."

Naruto didn't care, the guy in front of him was just one of many evildoers, he was a slave trader, he just deserved death, it didn't matter if the enemy was a an A-rank ninja, or an S-rank criminal, it didn't matter if the enemy in front of him was a Kage, it didn't change what he had to do.

Naruto rushed towards the ninja, but Okube just smirked at the brat and kicked the boy away, but the boy just popped out of existence, a clone. The cloud he made was blocking the criminal's vision, then hundreds of Kunai pierced through the mist, as if he was watching in slow motion, those mini blades were ready to pierce his body, however he, using his inhuman strength made a cyclone with his chain and scythe, blocking the kunai with the power of wind, he smirked. However that was also just a distraction, another Naruto teleported behind, with his left hand in a spear-like motion, Naruto was going to eviscerate his heart with just one hand.

Okube grit his teeth, and sent a poison cloud from his lips, he clicked his fingers and the poison exploded, burning the clone, however that was also a distraction, and beneath him a paper bomb burned, and exploded. Okube was a very skilled and powerful man, he escaped the explosion with a sprained hand and two degree burns on his arms.

"Krh!" he cursed the brat, however he couldn't let up because two clones engaged him in close quarters, one of them was the one that survived the explosion. The two clones of the brat were just using their fists, they were winning, they were pushing him back, just clones, he couldn't believe it. His pride was severely damaged. He screamed in rage and started becoming more reckless.

He used fire techniques as the embers burned the surrounding forest, he used earth techniques to confuse the clones, but all they had were bored looks. With insane difficulty he was able to defeat the clones, however his whole body was panting, "You..."

Naruto was watching dispassionately from over the tree, hiding himself but not really, he was disappointed with the A-ranked missing ninja, he knew highly destructive earth and fire techniques, his proficiency with the scythe was masterful, his scroll unleashed a hell of poisoned knives, he had explosive poison breath he could activate with a mechanism under his molar teeth.

All things that put him on the level of Zabuza, this man Okube could have seriously killed team seven a few months ago, he was faster than sound, something that Naruto and Sasuke could barely react to when they first started as genin, but that was it.

An A-rank jonin, were they really that weak?

The slave trader grabbed the chain and chucked his scythe to the tree where Naruto was barely hiding, Naruto didn't react at all. He was so disappointed, the scythe nicked his arm, a barely-there cut.

Naruto looked at it with dispassionate eye, a poisoned wound, was this man really dumb?

Naruto lazily got out of his not-so hiding place, he approached the open battlefield of fire.

"Brat, your life is over, that scythe of mine is poisoned"

"Unfortunately for you… poison doesn't affect me — It hasn't since seven months ago." Naruto responded, with concealed disappointment, the man didn't notice that his clone had survived the poison cloud, not by luck, but because he was immune to poison.

Okube closed his eyes in rage, first was his men, then his camp and business, this brat was destroying everything he built.

"Terada, he was out and about, did he betray me, brat?" He asked in a moment of weakness, ever since two years ago Terada was his best friend.

"No, this elimination mission comes from the samurai guard itself, Terada-san, was it? He had nothing to do with this, however he was also formulating his plan to kill you."

Okube grit his teeth in frustration, Terada was his best man, he was the one who came with the best plans, he was the one he confided the most with, and this brat was saying that he was going to betray him. "No… I don't believe you."

"It seems Terada wanted to avenge his old leader, that's why he got close to you, he was planning to release the slaves you captured and attack with a massive ninja squadron form the earth country next week, however since he's now dead, he can't go out to make the payment, that team will never arrive." Naruto answered with a professional speech, his personality had changed a lot from the brat he was a few months ago… He was showing signs of maturity, however he was still showing signs of arrogance.

"You… Arrrgh!" Okube cried in rage, his eyes watered, it seems even the missing ninja had emotions, but Zabuza taught Naruto about that when he was just a puny kid.

Everyone in the world had their motives, no one was strictly evil or good, however Naruto didn't care about how this missing ninja felt, Okube dabbed in slave trading, something that Naruto was starting to hate… now that he's been witness to it.

"It's over, Okube-san." Naruto whispered as the man blew a giant fireball into his direction in fury.

Contrary to everyone's expectations Naruto rushed, front and center and was consumed in the fireball. Okube smirked as the brat was done for, however the fireball was parted in two as if something of insane magnitude forced it into submission. Naruto just rushed forward without care, no burn marks or anything.

Okube couldn't react, because Naruto was moving faster than the eye could perceive, this was his real speed, the speed the clones were using was just to measure the slave trader's ability.

Okube took a step back but Naruto arrived in front of him with his right hand back, and in a swinging low motion, his palm came from the ground towards the man's upper body, on the open palm was a white ball that distorted gravity and reality itself.

Okube flinched and his upper body was erased in an explosion of blood that reached teen feet up in the air.

Naruto had his palm raised, the white ball was pristine, this was his new and improved rasengan, Naruto started at it, a tiny ball, half the size of his previous rasengan, but with enough power to kill anything and everything it came into contact with, be it chakra, humans, even god.

Sustained with even less chakra than he used before. Yes, this ball of death didn't use much chakra at all, the reason why it was so powerful was in the twisted concept of the first step of the rasengan training.

He closed his hand and the white ball of death was erased… Hs first step to improving the rasengan was complete… He wondered what his next mission would be as he led the former kidnapped slaves towards help.

* * *

**XOX**

* * *

How was he able to improve the rasengan until this point?

He had already completed the fourth step which was continual and self-sustained usage of the rasengan… The next step was to improve upon the rasengan and the answer was simply look at the other steps to make it and see if something can be changed.

Naruto had truly grasped what the fourth and what Jiraiya had missed. He overhauled the most basic foundation of the rasengan to make the ultimate grinding force of the universe.

The easiest answer was the second step Power — simply adding more chakra to the existing rasengan would make it bigger and more powerful, but there were diminishing returns here. Naruto couldn't choose the simplest answer, it wouldn't be right.

Then what did he do…?

The overhauled first step he looked at was Rotation — the user learns to spin their chakra in multiple directions at once. Looking closely under observation Naruto was able to grasp something, the first step is making fine chakra threads that spin clockwise and counter-clockwise to form the ball.

How many threads there were in a normal Rasengan? The answer was 16 in total… They were tiny and long pieces of hair that rotated bended in various ways until it formed a ball… that was the rasengan. He had checked this when Jiraya used the rasengan again… 16 threads.

What would happen if he added more threads to the equation?

He tried and discovered it was really hard to add more threads, the more he added the harder it was to maintain, like adding another difficulty to the most difficult chakra training exercise, however with the help of his clones he was able to do add them more easily.

And he arrived here… his own Rasengan had 128 threads… that was why the color changed, it was so condensed and heavy that it altered space itself in its presence.

If adding more chakra to a rasengan was additive power, adding more threads was exponential to the number of threads. He still hadn't made the jump to 256 threads yet due to fear for his own improved technique… Right now his Rasengan was able to disintegrate everything it met… Matter and Chakra alike.

He found another utility for the rasengan as an absolute shield for himself, no enemy technique was able to go against the rasengan it obliterated everything, just point the rasengan at a jutsu and it will annihilate any attack. It wasn't an absolute defense like Gaara or Neji's since his back continued to be exposed. However it wouldn't lose as a shield to anything — Just point the rasengan at the attack and watch it be obliterated when it meets the rasengan — This was Naruto's strategy for defense.

* * *

**XOX**

* * *

He was admonished again for the mission, while he was perfect in handling almost everything, Jiraiya still complained like a big taskmaster, it appeared that the missing ninja had a bounty on his head or something… Jiraya went on a rant about how its important for the body, especially the face to be intact so Naruto could receive the bounty for them or something.

Jiraiya became more and more like a hard-ass when he was teaching Naruto, but the blond ninja welcomed it, it feels like he was truly progressing forward and not being neglected like he was with Kakashi, no offence to the sharingan-wielding ninja, but that man wasn't teacher material.

Jiraiya even tossed him an updated bingo book, still the blond ninja didn't; care about bounties on someone's head, if he wanted money, he could just go on a casino spree and soon become as rich as that Gato asshole back at wave. "This book is useless; I don't care about bounties…"

Jiraiya hit him on his head with enough force that it cracked the ground, however Naruto was still fine with no wounds whatsoever, almost as if his body was harder than the ground itself, these past few months he had been building his own body strength ends and endurance while his clones learned actual interesting things, he felt like a bodybuilder not a ninja and was a bit envious of what his clones were training on day after day. Stuck on PE duty for his entire training regimen was an easy shortcut but still. He almost wished for the end of the day where he could fight all his clones so he could use the techniques his clones worked on.

Jiraiya started writing his shitty porn novel again. "Hah, you are still a brat, just skim it, you might find something interesting"

Naruto laid no the ground and lazily turned the pages, until four names caught his attention, Sasuke — missing ninja from the leaf, he as listed as an A priority ninja despite his rank as genin and wasn't sighted for two months, presumably in one of Orochimaru's hidden fortresses, listed were his last updated skills and techniques. Warnings were that he was as strong as a regular jonin despite being thirteen years of age and low rank— being a genin.

Sasuke is a lot tougher than a normal jonin, he could have handled that Okube guy with ease. Naruto praised his rival skills and it was the truth. His A-rank priority was probably due to his heritage, being a Uchiha survivor and all.

The next names that caused attention were Itachi — Orochimaru — Kisame. The three ninja he had met before and were the blond ninja's enemies for the foreseeable future. There was a wealth of information and warnings not to get close to any of those three, it appeared that ninjas of rank-S were in a completely different world than normal ninjas. Naruto wondered if by the end of his training he would be able to match their power and surpass any of them. To know of this, he needed to be able to match the most prolific ninja to ever live, the pervert writing smut beside him… His master was one of the most revered and powerful ninja of this era… To beat any of them, he had to match his own master in prowess and sheer power.

Naruto was now motivated again.

"Let's test your rasengan one more time."

Jiraiya was serious, his clones all stopped working as Jiraya opened his hands to the sky and then a rasengan as big as a building was created over the sage, it was incredible how powerful the rasengan the sage created was, fi he rammed that against a fortress it would be a ball of destruction that melted everything in its way. An unstoppable demolition ball that shredded even steel like paper.

The sage wasted no time from them moment of the rasegna's creation and rushed Naruto with the intention of killing him with this rasengan.

"Great big ball rasengan!" Jiraiya yelled as he jumped and was about to strike the blond Uzumaki who hadn't even had the time to raise any defense, or that what it looked like to any observer, in truth, Naruto slowly raised an empty hand to meet the big ball rasengan.

And within that empty hand a small golden ball was formed, it met with Jiraya's towering rasengan and blew it to bits without any and all delay. The force of the implosion was so massive that it chucked Jiraya back so fast he hit a hill with the speed of a missile.

Naruto stood still with his peerless golden rasengan, the size of a small coin, still rotating normally in his hands, as if not affected by anything.

Jiraiya was astonished, there was a hundred times less chakra being used in that small golden ball, yet it was a peerless attack of annihilation to anything it met. An unstoppable force.

His disciple had taken the technique of the fourth and elevated it by modifying its application and nothing else, and it was something that only Naruto could truly be capable of. Naruto had spent several lifetimes worth of clones to make that small golden ball a reality, almost a millennia of focusing on that one task. Truly it was a one of a kind technique that couldn't be replicated by anyone.

For the first time, Jiraiya was actually terrified of the shadow clone technique and what it enabled.

"Now that your rasengan is stronger, its time you improve on another technique in the meanwhile… Now Naruto, show me how you can improve the shadow clone technique." Jiraiya said with a serious tone.

* * *

**XOX**

* * *

They were at the Rasa's office,

"Why are you doing this Rasa-san?" Naruto asked his employer, him and his assesors were around him, wielding Katanas.

"Now that Yushimaru is dead, I can start collecting the real estate around here, I can't let a brat of the leaf know what happened between us, sorry kid, but that's how it is in the Real estate business. You ready for this, huh?!" Rasa yelled with arrogance.

"You're free to come at me however you wish" Naruto cracked his own neck in preparation for the coming battle. "But you'll find soon how badly you've angered me."

Rasa ordered his men to attack, the nearest tried a stab with the katana, however Naruto sidestepped and delivered a crushing elbow towards the man's shoulders,m the man fell to the ground and Naruto stomped on his face, blownig the man's skull inside out by the massive strength the Kyuubi container had.

The men were so slow to attack, almost as if they were in stoppd time.

Naruto picked up Rasa's sofa and hit the men with a whirlwind, knocing ebven Rasa to the ground.

He picked up the nearest body by the leg and tossed it over the shoulder towards another fallen man, killing them both with one strike.

One man rushed with his blade, however this time Naruto wanted to put the fear of god into them, he caught the sharp edge with his teeth and pressed with his jaw, breaking the blade into pieces, He looked at the man who frightfully took a step back, however that was the last thing he ever did as Naruto put two hands on his shoulders and ripped his arms off with the strength of a monster, then he turned to face another and with a claw-like motion strike the man's neck, making it bend sideways.

Then with a glare he knocked everyone out of the way as a tank rushing through ants and bear-hugged Rasa breaking his spine and throwing the body over his shoulder. The other men were frightful of Rasa's death; however the room was already locked and there were on escape from them, they were locked in a bear cage, and they were weaker than rabbits.

The massive bear that was Naruto killed them all with his brawn alone, showing how superior he was to normal people.

"Yoru and Lily died because of these shits."

The war between Rasa and Yushimaru started over as simple protection, then Rasa ordered Naruto to assassinate Yushimaru with damned proof that the man was running a slave ring, however on the way he was attacked by none other than Yushimaru's bodyguard.

It looked as if both rivals had the same idea. Yushimaru's bodyguard was an orphan named Yoru, the young man was a self-taught ronin, a wandering ninja with no affiliation or village, more-or-less a mercenary who used ninja skills.

The man was strong, too strong, they tied for two battles in a month, while the third ended with Naruto slicing Yoru's aorta.

As he laid dying, the man gave him a journal and told him to protect Lily, Yoru's adopted sister.

It turned out that Yoru was a mercenary because he wanted to sustain his own sister, his own family that he found, however unfortunate that his career led to him meeting with Naruto in battle.

Naruto took Yoru's request to heart and went to recover Yoru's little sister form their little house they were living in. However when he arrived, Yushimaru, the owner of the slave ring, Rasa's mortal enemy and Yoru's contractor had kidnapped raped and killed the little girl.

Naruto had arrived too late.

Yoru's little adopted sister had been caught n the crossfire due to Yushimaru's inefficiency in finishing off Rasa.

Over a month of bodyguards fighting each other led to the slave master being impatient.

Naruto annihilated every single one of Yushimaru's man and dismembered and cut Yushimaru to pieces for dishonoring Yoru's sacrifice for him.

Yoru the wandering ninja only wanted to provide for his little sister, and even in death he was betrayed by his contractor.

"Of course in the end, even I was betrayed." Naruto looked at Rasa and his crew, all dead at his office.

This mission was a massive catastrophic failure, it honestly reminded him of Zabuza and how he was betrayed by Gato.

He retrieved Yoru and little Lily's body and buried them together before going to Rasa's office to report and this was the end of it.

Then a ninja arrived on top of Rasa's mahogany desk, it was an ANBU, from the leaf, with the mask of a monkey.

"What a devastating Taijutsu you've built." The sole ANBU surveid the scene, then took out a notebook to record stuff with a pencil.

His style was based on a bear's strength and ability to withstand attacks. A nigh unstoppable force and a nigh impenetrable defense, built with attacks that could crush steel, it primarily focused on grinding a man's bones to dust with its sheer force, but when confronting lesser powerful foes like normal humans, this style tended to blow people from the inside.

"Mission completed, you did well, ninja Uzumaki Naruto." He said nonchalantly.

"W—Wait, this mission was a catastrophic failure, Rasa, our contractor betrayed us and is now dead!" Naruto onestly did not understand.

"Oh, him betraying us was in the acceptable parameters of the mission, if he didn't betray us we would use his debt to collect all of his properties around the country."

"I don't understand."

"Then I shall explain, you are the most important ninja of the leaf right now after all."

The ANBU with the mask of a monkey then went on a lengthy exposition about how Konoha was immersed in another type of warfare ever since the third ninja war, a warfare of money and capital, scattering the highest ranking ANBU form the Zodiac team on other countries and acquiring real estate, the main mission was to have a superb amount of cashflow flowing to Konoha's coffers to invest in technology, weapons, information warfare and doubling investments in real estate.

Rasa and Yushimaru were in the way of a complete monopoly for this region. Cashflow, real estate, owning business, it was all a financial war in the end. It didn't matter which side Naruto was, with Rasa or Yushimaru, they were to be leveraged against or killed either way.

"This has been your first A-rank solo mission, great job. Tsunade-sama has told us Zodiacs to offer missions to you as you pass through the countries we wish to control, Your contribution has been recognized by the ANBU and the Hokage, you shall earn your next field promotion effective immediately, welcome to the Jonin squad, as it were." Monkey explained to him with a detached and professional tone, as if he was talking to a normal convenience store clerk.

The mission was initially denoted as a B-rank bodyguard mission and assassination mission bundled up together. To think its true rank was hidden from the start and nobody warned him.

Most superiors in rank looked down on him as a child or someone inconvenient, so it was refreshing to having a super high-up in the ANBU corps not looking down on him, even respecting him for what he was but, Monkey mask was the one who issued this mission.

"We dragged Yoru and little Lily to a war of real estate, what joke is this?" Naruto asked with the most neutral tone possible, he was trying to understand all of this.

"The ronin and his adopted sister, they were acceptable losses. The only reason the civilian child lost her life was because you were slow, your speed did not reach her in time, learn from your powerlessness I guess." He said not giving a hint of emotion, he was really professional, the man behind the monkey mask.

"…But!" Naruto protested, a bit of his frustration coming out.

The man with the mask of a monkey cut him off before any weak arguments could come out. "Also you liked fighting the ronin Yoru and testing your skill against him, so you dragged your fight with him for over a month when reports of your current power shows that you could have killed the ronin or subdued him in the first battle… While it was true that they were casualties of this mission, it was your actions that sacrificed them, do not misunderstand, you could have wholly made them live if you had chosen a different path in the mission."

Everything he said was the truth, for Naruto, even if it was subconsciously, he had been treating this bodyguard mission like a game he could play against Yoru, even if there were hidden information that the scroll neither the mission giver gave him that this was a real estate war Naruto did not even try to see what was underneath, he had been comfortable and dragged two lives under because of his own arrogance. He killed Yoru because of his hidden anger at any mention of slave trading. He hadn't reached Lily in time because he was slow, and because he dragged the mission to the point where Yushimaru became frustrated with the lack of progress his own bodyguard Yoru had shown.

"I hope you understand that there was only one person that cared about their lives, it was you, if you want to save someone next time be more proactive." Monkey warned him as he was writing on his strange list and looting the bodies.

"Why are you telling me all this stuff?"

"As I said, you're the most important ninja in the leaf right now, because of your sheer potential the ANBU and Tsunade-sama had surmised by your and Jiraya's reports that you will become Konoha's most powerful asset in a year or so… We of the Zodiacs hope to count you as a member soon as well."

"A member of the Zodiacs? Why?! I'm not interested!" Naruto was wholly uninterested in this financial war of real estate and investments in other countries to gain hidden monopolies.

"You should, as of right now Fire country has been left without a Zodiac for over thirty years… The mask of the dragon still remains without a master." He said as he turned around and Naruto saw, a massive tattoo on the man's back, covered slightly by the uniform of the ANBU.

A massive depiction of a tale, with a prominent monkey with fierce eyes, wielding a massive cleaver sword. A colorful tattoo denoting the Zodic symbol as the man vanished.

Naruto down and grit his teeth violently, the slave trade happening in Fire country as well as countless other suspicions when he completed missions there. Monkey had offered a high enough position to monitor and control the entire Fire country's financial situation, the land where his own Daimyo ruled, the land where his own village was situated. Right now it was being handled by Tsunade and the Fire daimyo and his advisors, however someone could rule it from the shadows and set things right, the Dragon…

Naruto vanished for the room of dead people and appeared on top of the highest building, overlooking the city, the office was now miles away. He breathed in the cold air as he contemplated.

He leaned nothing of Gato's quest in wave country and made the same mistakes here as he did with Zabuza and Haku, he was but a child wandering around, full of himself because he was so powerful, he hadn't stopped to think of what was underneath, he failed what Kakashi always told him and two lives were lsot as a result, Yoru, who was such a friendly rival, their battles were so interesting, he could have been a friend, and little Lily, who was but an orphaned child, a little girl who couldn't understand what was going on.

"What a fool…" muttered the blond Jonin, not even fourteen years of age and already receiving two field promotion, bare months of each other. Not knowing what Tsunade or Jiraya or these Zodiacs truly expected of him. "I am such a joke…"

He kept self-criticizing for more than a minute when he raised his head with a determined glare. Today he was a baby who couldn't see the world for what it 10

Tomorrow he would be a grown up who understood what was underneath the surface. He wouldn't let down all those people who hammered the same lessons down, he could not, should not betray their hopes and expectations, he would be staining Zabuza and Haku's memories if he kept this blissful ignorance going on forever.

* * *

**Review Corner~**

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**Lifelessman, inacioqgs10caedwards, caedwards.**  
Thank you for your initial reviews, it gives me hope that this fiction might have somewhat of a future.

**A Simple Library, camdawg.**  
I love that you always leave a review on my works, don't worry Ambition of a God will resume and The world breaks will continue because I'm in love with the persona series.

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**Author's notes.**

* * *

This chapter went a bit more into the AU side-stories as it explored two of the most defining missions in Naruto's training years, the next chapter will focus on whirpool and water country as Naruto fights in a war of blood and families in the hidden mist, aiding Mei and her resistance against the forces of Yagura and his butchers.

As for the Kyuubi, in all of the fictions I read of Godlike Naruto is that fem Kyuubi is always helpful and is an integral part of Naruto's strength. On this fiction however I've decided to go the opposite route. This Naruto dislikes relying on the Kyuubi so much that he would like to never even talk about it. In fact his hatred of the Kyuubi will only grow in time as he learns of his parentage and that Kyuubi killed both Minato and Kushina. However that hatred will eventually turn into love as he comes into terms with his dream after the pain arc and before the war arc.


	3. Chapter 3

**Hello, Soluxy back with another chapter of Birth of Legends.**

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**Mist — Civil war**

* * *

"An S-rank mission?" Uzumaki Naruto asked his mentor with a bit of excitement and uncertainty.

His master Jiraiya delivered his speech on the mission, Uzumaki Naruto was to travel south towards Tea country and take a ship towards Water country.

—Uzumaki Naruto's objective was to take the civil war to whatever natural conclusion possible and make the Mist village as a whole indebted to the Leaf village… or more precisely to Senju Tsunade, Naruto's most precious woman in his life right now.

Hidden in the parameters was for Naruto to help Goat Mask acquire a significant portion of the Water Country's real estate and businesses… With Mist's civil war spanning for more than two decades; the Hidden Village was none the wiser of the money war happening underground.

"Rejoice brat, it's your first S-rank mission, getting important enough, are we?" Jiraiya said with the usual sarcastic bite as he took a sip of his tiny cup of sake.

"So you're not going to help, are you master?" Naruto asked with a bit graver tone.

"No, you'll be getting no help, this is your story brat." Jiraiya stated with furrowed eyebrows.

Uzumaki Naruto knew that his master and mentor Jiraiya, the toad sage, was a jokester most of the time, with his perverted antics and porn writing he was quite a charismatic man that Naruto could call somewhat close to a father, however at times like these, where there were bloody missions given to Naruto, Jiraiya would be strangely quiet.

On the next break from the physical routine, Jiraiya opened with a statement that broke Uzumaki Naruto's expectations out of the water. "In all the Hidden Leaf's centenary and celebrated history, only 15 S-rank missions have been issued… Of all of them only 4 ended up in success, all 11 others were met with absolute failure." Jiraiya said with a serious tone again.

Uzumaki Naruto could not believe his master's words and he was battered with information on how S-rank missions differed in importance than anything else. To start with, since the beginning of the Leaf's creation as a village of shinobi more than 100,000 A-rank missions had been issued, the disparity between the two ranks was too large.

"If you thought the distance between A-rank ninjas and S-rank were of night and day then the difference between an A-rank mission and an S-rank one is in even greater orders of magnitude." Master Jiraiya chastised him.

S-rank missions were now being explained to Uzumaki Naruto as if he was but an ignoramus child who didn't know how the world worked and thought that regular career shinobi or a battalion of ANBU black ops could deal with the difficulty and parameters of such an intense mission. Uzumaki Naruto was a boy of fourteen-years of age, barely six months into his training, however he possessed a significant advantage over everybody else in the form of his identifying technique called Shadow clones, producing tens of thousands every day and fighting one on army fights every night for those six months it could be said that there was no person more experienced in combat than Uzumaki Naruto himself, he learned himself and through his clones eyes how exactly one should kill a man with the same level of power, over and over again as the nights became ever more intense and deadly.

That closed off perception skewed Uzumaki Naruto's thoughts on reality and blended into fantasy. This was the real world, not some dream reality where if everyone worked hard, they would achieve legendary status… some like him were blessed on the day they were born with advantages over everybody else… for his friend, Uchiha Sasuke it was his clan, money and bloodline… For Naruto was the longevity, vitality and the Nine-tailed Fox.

These advantages led both to reach the peak of their age without effort, they were the absolute top dogs of the continent in their age group no matter whichever enemy came to them. Similarly S-rank ninjas were the absolute cream of the crop and were born or acquired significant advantages that propelled each one of them towards the very top.

The Sannin were a legendary group of ninjas, consisting of the three — Jiraiya, Orochimaru, Senju Tsunade. Their whole career was filled with accomplishments after accomplishments, each of them being capable of exercising the position of Hokage at whatever point of their life. Their voices were heard, and their presence respected and sometimes feared. The dream team for more than forty years in the making. "—And yet the only S-rank mission issued to our team ended in failure." Jiraiya stated towards Uzumaki Naruto.

Naruto was dumbfounded, thrown completely for a loop, his strong mentor failed one of these elusive missions?

It turned out that the mission they, the Sannin, were issued with was to assassinate Hanzo of the Salamander the hidden leader of Rain Country. Hanzo himself proved to match the three disciples of the Third Hokage and defeated these three in a fair and straight combat. They've failed their only S-rank mission issued to their team and nevermore they were issued with one.

"The Third Hokage was often called the 'God of Shinobi' for accomplishing an S-rank mission in his youth." Jiraiya stated.

"I—I see, but then why would she issue one towards me then?" Naruto asked why Tsunade, his mother figure would do such things when he was only fourteen-years-old, and while he was a jonin, he was still a new one with a couple of dozen A-ranks under his belt.

"You always keep sending your journals to her, right?" Jiraiya has been watching his student, always sending journals and messages of his daily life, skills he acquired and how strong he has become. Similarly Jiraiya has also sent reports to Tsunade and Naruto was also being assessed by the Zodiacs in every country they passed. Three different sources gauging Naruto's strength and skill as a shinobi made it certain for Senju Tsunade to believe in her son figure, Uzumaki Naruto's capacity as one of her most powerful assets.

Senju Tsunade and Uzumaki Naruto's relationship was a complex thing. Both loved each other immensely and would do anything for each other. However another aspect was this — she was his leader and he was her tool. Something like this might have led to conflicts between both but Naruto was not incensed at all… He was partly glad that someone recognized his tremendous presence and took complete advantage of it without underestimating him, and he was also in line with Senju Tsunade's sense of justice — no it was the opposite, Naruto had influenced Tsunade's sense of justice and forced her to agree to his own beliefs back when he met her.

Naruto had to smirk, she was the paper-pusher, he was the one that broke bones, this suited him fine, action is where he truly shone.

Naruto walked and stared at the waterfall nearby, he raised his five-foot-six-inch muscular body. He took his arm out of the sleeve of his dark grey kimono and scratched his abdomen, he was ripped in all sort of places and had an eight-pack to demonstrate his pure strength of body the incredible physicality of someone whose resistance seals had the force of an ocean pushing against his body.

With this kind of figure, Uzumaki Naruto was not a simple boy of fourteen years of age. He understood how wider the world was… in these times, when he was reminded of his obliviousness, he remembered Haku. It felt like a long time ago but in reality — it had only been a year since Naruto met him.

Uzumaki Naruto's life was so short but with the Shadow clones constantly feeding information made him feel like he had been living for more than ten-thousand years.

Jiraiya approached him and stood side-by-side. Of course, S-rank missions weren't given to the Hokage once in the seat of power because the Hokage didn't take on missions, he or she, issued them.

"Want to know how little you know about truly powerful people? Out of the four S-rank missions ever completed successfully, two of them have been completed by the Fourth Hokage, Namikaze Minato, before he took the mantle."

That tidbit of information that Jiraiya lit a competitive fire inside of the boy like nothing else. _An S-rank mission, Tsunade? I'll do it. No questions asked._

* * *

**XOX**

* * *

Yakunobe was a town on the outskirts of Water country, it was a port town with a medium sized population of poor and medium class folk, this town of Yakunobe had trade routes towards the city of Naranokawa — the biggest port of these islands was.

The town of Yakunobe was a cool place near the Ocean of Sadness, the beaches were gray and filthy, full of timber and coconuts. The town itself was surrounded by small, verdant and humid forests of the coast and the houses were made entirely out of wood, the pavement was simple dirt where few carriages passed by. There was a large production of cocoa, coffee, tobacco and wheat, controlled by a local warlord leader who had ties to the Water Daimyo. The local warlord had a large stone mansion.

The climate was humid and cold due to precipitations and fog and it prevailed throughout Water Country who consisted of five great island and innumerable small archipelagos all around that formed a nation of largely disconnected people. Some villages were so oblivious to the geopolitics prevailing the land they didn't even know they had a leader called the Water Daimyo living in the lush capital of Hongawa.

Those snippets of information were clearly collected and catalogued by Naruto's spread out clones who used an elementary but perfected technique — the so-called transformation technique, physical clones who were completely indistinguishable from another person, even to sensor shinobi.

Transformed into men or women of all ages, the clones spread out. Since this was a medium town a group of twelve was the maximum to not raise suspicion.

Naruto was transformed into a twenty-something black-haired lady with big boobs and cleavage for male attention and was getting some information out of the barkeep but her asking was interrupted.

"Hey! You filth!" a rude bearded man laughed as he kicked some nine-year-old orphan. The child had no one on his corner, everybody on the bar was looking away, no parents to speak of. "Aren't you a filthy bloodline kid, your blood is dirty, you TRASH, how dare you keep asking for change from your betters, every single one of you _bloodline traitors _should be thrown in a pit of fire!" The bearded man and his gang took the little boy outside dragged by the hair as the boy struggled and cried. The man kept laughing as he spewed out racist drivel against people of bloodlines with his disgusting mouth.

Uzumaki Naruto knew that the kid was not a bloodline user, there was barely any chakra in him, he was a civilian with no background of shinobi in his blood. Yet the bearded man used his disgusting rhetoric to target people he did not like. It was like this in any country who had laws for persecution of certain groups.

With no proof, they will out that person they don't like as that type and get rid of them, it was the natural conclusion of any regime based on persecution. Uzumaki Naruto hated everything about it.

The bearded man and his gang dragged the boy to a dark alley as always… and kicked the boy's head. Naruto arrived, still disguised as a woman with a kimono that showed her big cleavage and light skin. "Can you let the boy go?" she asked innocently.

But of course these men were hardwired into two things, bullying people and sexually abusing women and when such a bombastic girl came to an alleyway, everyone knew what would happen. Two of them closed the distance with two steps invading her personal space. Naruto looked at them with cold unfeeling eyes.

"Hehe~ we have such a nice big sister here…"

"C'mon use those tits of your for our pleasure…"

The man that wanted to touch her body lost his arm and lost half his face from the horizontal axis, a blinding short blade was revealed and Naruto, still disguised as a woman, rushed them and ended their lives while the boy remained unconscious. Completely out of it.

"Goat, come here…" she announced and a huge man with black braided hair with a green jade gem arrived, he wore the usual ANBU uniform and a white goat mask… behind his absolutely muscular back was an intricate designed and colorful tattoo of a goat spanning every inch of his skin until his forearms.

"Uzumaki-san, you took notice of me…" Goat Mask appeared to be an old middle-aged man by his raspy, husky voice and appeared to be even more professional than Monkey Mask.

"Tsunade told me you'd be in this city and that you shall help me contact the rebel faction on the mainland…"

"Yes, however Uzumaki-san, you know by now that any favor given must be returned… you first need to help me here in Yakunobe." Goat Mask spoke to him as an equal partner… Zodiacs were always like this and Uzumaki Naruto learned to love this professional relationship he had with them a lot.

Naruto hugged the unconscious boy with her woman's body and from her back a new Naruto arrived, with no seals or smoke or sounds, a new clone was just formed out of empty space. This time the features were of a brown-haired forgettable man.

Goat Mask was shocked beyond belief. "Uzumaki-san, where is your current body, the real one?"

She took the unconscious boy in her arms in a princess carry. The other clone would be accompanying Goat Mask on whatever task he saw fit. "Who knows? Perhaps I'm here in Yakunobe, perhaps I'm in Naranokawa, the biggest port city of Water Country, perhaps I'm in Hongawa, the lush capital or perhaps I'm already deep within the village hidden in the Mist… Hey Goat mask, where do you think I am?"

"…"

* * *

**XOX**

* * *

Goat mask wanted complete control of Yakunobe and assassinating all the henchmen of the warlord and the warlord himself was the mission given. The town of Yakunobe was a port due south of the country and was the last link needed for the Zodiacs in this region of the world for complete control of the countries south of the Ocean of Sadness… Moon, Crimson, Tea, Nagi, Sea, Noodles, Kiko and Jiro countries were already in full control by the Zodiacs… To make a strong trading spot they just needed this port to completely dominate the Ocean south of Fire country.

Bringing this trade route to life would bring a 10 billion Ryo of pure liquid profit annually to the Leaf. Regarding the financial and real estate war there were barely any competitors in the game at this point… It was as if Tsunade was playing chess and everyone else was playing checkers and didn't see how badly she pulled the rug from below everyone.

And so like true unstoppable shinobi, Naruto sprung the plan, assassinate every single henchman in the town so that nobody could raise a peep about the warlord's death and get Goat Mask's little foothold in place to both complete the trade route and open up Water Country for domination.

"So, you'll introduce me to the rebel group, right?" Naruto said retrieving the blade from the warlord's throat in the office of his stone mansion.

"Yes… but how will you end the war? In your mission's parameters, it was stated that you could ally yourself with whatever faction, why choose the rebels when siding with the current Mizukage would be easier."

"It's simple preference, I dislike what Mizukage did to the country." Uzumaki Naruto's reason for choosing sides was simply based on preference and sense of justice.

All the pieces of the Mizukage were already hanging, any move the man made on the board would be game over for him; Uzumaki Naruto by this point had already won due to the incredible progress he made with the Shadow clones as a skill.

"It doesn't matter if you think the mission is hard, the civil war is as good as over from the point I infiltrated this country…"

Goat Mask had an intense shiver as he looked at the confident fourteen-year-old Uzumaki Naruto; For Goat Mask, the shinobi next to him was already situated in another plane of existence… To think that Jiraiya-sama raised another monster was incomprehensible to the tall and strong Goat Mask.

"We will meet on the biggest port of the country, Naranokawa in two days, meet me there, Goat Mask." The Uzumaki Naruto that was there vanished, or more specifically dispelled into nothingness, without sound or a cloud of smoke — the only indication was the reverb of Naruto's voice.

* * *

**XOX**

* * *

Yamaoka Arata was a simple but accomplished shinobi in the forces of Water country, two things led his life, his desire for stability and his loyalty to his Kage. He was accomplished in the fact that he was one of the triple dozen forces that surrounded the Mizukage as his bodyguards. Having black hair and brown eyes, being slightly below average in height with a stocky build and the usual gray-blue uniform of a jonin.

Yamaoka Arata specialized in both water, earth and a bit of wind, ninja techniques, with a slight preference towards short blades in a physical confrontation and paper bombs as traps.

Today the Mizukage himself called all his bodyguards to the tower where he was situated, the village hidden in the mist was full of wooden estates and a large stone tower.

Inside of the Mizukage's large auditorium were dozens upon dozens of leather chairs, a small table upon the chair in the center, having a canola incense burning there. The seats were filled to the brim except the one in the center. The closest seat to the center was filled with a person Yamaoka Arata hated… one of the seven swordsman of the mist, the last loyal one.

He was a man named Munashi Jinpachi, wielding the Explosive blade, he was a man with brown hair and braided beard with an eyepatch on the left side and serrated teeth. One of the members of the seven swordsman of the mist, when all of them either perished or betrayed and left the Mist. That was why Yamaoka Arata hated the arrogant and entitled Munashi Jinpachi.

Steps heard, the Mizukage arrived, he had the appearance of a small child with faded green hair and pink eyes, holding a staff with a faded green scarf and mesh armor. This man was Karatachi Yagura, he became the fourth Mizukage at the age of fourteen, he held the three tails inside and had perfect control over the beast and this man hadn't aged in over twenty years since he took control over the Mist.

He sat on the central leather chair, with his face inclined forward and took a pipe out of his pocket, Munashi Jinpachi raised himself and lit the pipe for his leader. This was a sign of respect and nothing was heard but the smoking of their leader and his pissed off face, dozens upon dozens of accomplished ninja almost shivering and telling their bodies to not move a single inch.

Karatachi Yagura built his army upon fear and respect towards his own power as well as hatred and persecution towards bloodlines.

"Two weeks prior we received reports of a complete takeover on the city of Naranokawa, our most important port, since then the enemy has advanced towards starving tactics…" Soft spoken, the terrifying Karatachi Yagura continued. Since the takeover of Naranokawa, the rebels have been gaining more and more battles in their favor towards the north-east of the country, near the capital where the Daimyo was settled Hongawa. The starving tactics were reaching a critical point where supplies were hard to come by for citizens and protest and riots have been prevalent. The Daimyo gave an immediate order for the Shinobi village, they needed to reclaim Naranokawa right away from the rebels' control.

From the past week, Karatachi Yagura has been sending teams upon teams of both surveillance and battle-ready battalions but none had returned. The most likely scenario was they were ambushed.

The Daimyo has grown increasingly frustrated and gave an ultimatum. Reclaim it now or suffer sanctions. Karatachi Yagura had been rageful this day about the failures of his squadrons in reconnaissance and battle.

"We received reliable reports that the rebels are situated near Hongawa, north-west of the island."

It was worth noting that there was peculiar geography on the main island of Water Country, that there was a giant mountain range spanning from the north to the south.

Both Hongawa and Mist were situated east and Naranokawa was situated west of the mountain range. Mist has survived terrible wars only because there was only one Pass on that mountain range. The Honzuki Pass was a heavily fortified valley and road, that's why the Mist never fell and that's why they spent more than fifteen years fighting rebels as well… Because the Mist was east of that mountain range and the rebel base was north-west, any venture to terminate the rebels would be met with extreme loss of life, and any attack to the Honzuki Pass was death. Overcoming the mountain range with large forces was tantamount to a suicide charge. So the mountains both to the south and the north remained largely unexplored.

"The Daimyo wants this done, so I shall go personally," Yagura said so softly as he smoked more of his pipe. "I want a half-dozen of you to be at Hongawa to quell the protests and riots, the rest will follow me to Naranokawa."

Mist was well protected and Hongawa would receive some soldiers as a bonus to appease that coward lord, Yamaoka Arata also saw that Honzuki Pass was extremely protected in case of an attack from the North. And Kenkami prison was south-east of the country, directly south of Mist village and heavily guarded, all the positions were so heavily fortified.

"When we re-take Naranokawa we shall set a three-side pincer on the Northwest region, rat them out." Yagura pointed at Honzuki Hongawa and Naranokawa and traced arrows towards the northwest.

Yamaoka Arata had eyes of admiration towards his Kage, as expected of him, he was a master at the board as always, _it was time for payback._

* * *

**XOX**

* * *

Yamaoka Arata saw the fallen shinobi on the ground, a woman with black-hair, wearing a blank white uniform and a mask. After they arrived in Naranokawa they were able to flush out the invaders and they were able to dispatch them, however half of the Mist jonin, his comrades were dead.

Yamaoka Arata breathed hard, his arm and chest was full of cuts, these invaders all were as strong as jonin and had no affiliation whatsoever. Even to a dedicated man as him, their appearance did not match with most of the rebels in the country.

A Mist Jonin by his side pushed the dead woman shinobi's pants down and unbuckled his own, his breathing was hard due to his injuries but the man that Yamaoka Arata watched was ready to violate the dead woman's corpse… It was a commonly seen, violating dead or dying kunoichi in the battlefield, it was ugly… it was vomit-inducing but some men would break down under pressure and depression if they didn't do this. The practice of raping civilians was thankfully banned after the third war… but even still to a mentally loyal and stable man like Yamaoka Arata, seeing his comrades do such a thing made him pale.

However before his comrade could start doing his deed, the white masked kunoichi that should have been dead, sprung to life and stabbed his partner. Yamaoka watched his partner's blood slid through the air before seriousness and professionalism settled into his eyes, he prepared a slicing water technique however the woman appeared before him faster than he could—

Both ended up stabbing each other, the kunoichi stabbed him in the stomach, his pancreas and intestine exploded out of his wound, and Arata stabbed her in the heart with a kunai.

Before he could fall and die, he thought of something — the kunoichi was definitely dead before, no pulse and no breathing, then how did she spring back to life?

As they fell to the ground, Arata stared at her eyes, she was definitely dead this time, a wound to the heart, bursting it completely open.

Her eyes were cold and not moving and he felt relief.

Until she winked her eyes at him and then returned to being "dead".

He died with an upsetting realization on his face.

* * *

**XOX**

* * *

Munashi Jinpachi put his Explosive blade as the last blast killed and disembodied the man he was fighting; he saw that all enemies wore the same blank uniform and had the same white mask. They all had fighting skills that matched with Jonin and were all resilient and silent, however they didn't use any nature transformation techniques.

Karatachi Yagura arrived near him after killing five or so enemies.

"These aren't from the rebel forces; it makes me a bit uneasy." Yagura confessed with soft-spoken words as his men gathered the dead bodies of their enemies into a cart.

"Do you think the rebels got some outside help?"

"Yeah, but we don't know these ninja, could be from Sky, Lightning or Fire Countries but we would have no idea. Still we must continue, the time of those rebels and the bloodline families is here, by next year we will be a country free from those demons." Karatachi Yagura said, leaking his tailed beast chakra to make his point.

Recapturing Naranokawa was tough but they did it in less than two days of fighting, it was a reckless assault without much information and some of his forces paid a price, but it was better than let the starvation tactic continue further. Yagura foresaw the burning of the enemy corpses near a marsh near the city of Naranokawa, he stared at the burning cart of at least twenty-four foreign ninja. Jinpachi accompanied him.

Jinpachi was a complicated man, as he looked towards his leader Yagura he thought about his comrades of the seven swordsmen of the Mist, all dead or gone. Munashi Jinpachi was a man that had a degree of loyalty towards his Mizukage however he was arrogant and preferred to think that he was his leader most powerful asset, that was why he was always stationed close to his leader for double protection. However that closeness birthed resentment. Munashi Jinpachi had personal wishes, one of them was to hunt down the still-alive members and gather all seven swords back and grow a new generation of the seven. However Yagura never let Jinpachi out of the country… even when Zabuza was sighted a year back in Wave, Yagura still wouldn't let Jinpachi hunt down the bastard and acquire Jinpachi's most desired sword — the Executioner's blade.

Still Jinpachi carried on hope that one day Yagura might finally give the order.

Just then a jonin arrived and went on one knee in front of the Mizukage Yagura. "Mizukage-sama, we have an urgent message! The Prison of Kenkami is currently under siege by the rebels!" the ninja delivered the scroll, Yagura grasped the scroll and read its contents.

The message was a last-ditch effort by the Prison's security.

"Kenkami Prison is already taken? But this does not make a lick of sense—" Yagura's brow furrowed.

Jinpachi was of the same mind. For the longest time the rebel base was thought of to be in the Northwest of the country. The Prison of Kenkami was due Southeast. In the first place, the rebels needed to pass the mountain range and the only way was through Honzuki pass in the center of the country, which was heavily fortified, and not to mention that Yagura and himself were there two days back and even left a few forces to fortify that Pass. There was no feasible way for the rebels to have captured Honzuki without incurring terrible losses.

And even if they were able to find a safe way that was not through Honzuki pass over the mountain range, the capital of Water country, Hongawa, was the closest target instead of heading south and passing the vicinity of Mist to attack Kenkami.

"If we go by the preconception they already freed the prisoners, we must assume their forces have increased considerably, here's the plan…" Karatachi Yagura formed a plan, the rebels would need a day or so to restock the prisoners of war with weapons to make an attempt of attacking Mist village directly north of the prison. They would return to Mist and fortify both the Honzuki pass and Mist and alternate between the two as a siege was coming.

Since Hongawa was directly north of Mist it was safe and there were many forces there already quelling the protests. This was all a terrible development, but they would prevail in the end.

However one Hawk arrived to throw everything for a giant loop.

There was a delicate and intricate scroll that only the Daimyo would use and there contained the information that Hongawa's castle was under siege from the riots and that the life of the lord and his family was put at risk. It was procedure for the Kage to serve as the bodyguard in situations like this. The Daimyo was calling for Karatachi Yagura personally to quell the rage at the capital.

"We sent some soldiers to Hongawa, this doesn't make any sense at all." Jinpachi said as he sensed his leader's frustrations. The rebels did not have the firepower to attack Kenkami and Hongawa at the same time, one was a heavily fortified prison south-east, one was the capital north-east full of samurai and shinobi.

Yagura put a hand on a tree by the marsh and crushed it with his hand. "Of course it was a two-pronged attack following a diversion, they have more white-masks in the country to help them. Jinpachi take seventy-percent of my forces here and return to fortify Mist from the attack coming from the south. I'll take the fastest troops and kill anyone in the capital then immediately return to Mist."

Jinpachi was also frustrated at the development, using Naranokawa to draw them away from the Mist was the basic plan, the real attack was coming.

* * *

**XOX**

* * *

He and Yagura separated at Honzuki pass, which was still intact and full of troops, Yagura ordered most of them to go to the Mist and holdout until he arrived, he took the fastest troops and rushed to the capital. He was strong enough to quell any riot or attacker there.

Jinpachi handled his sword in the back as they rushed continuously to Mist village, they passed through the water marshes where the fog was settled, in 20 miles they would be home.

Most soldiers were frustrated that they had to marathon the country twice over these past few days. Jinpachi understood that frustration well, they've been ragdolled by the enemy over the span of a country's length, it was frustrating. "Tch, whoever's behind this, I want them to pay with their blood." He said.

"I guess you have the chance."

"Who—?"

Jinpachi and a hundred or so soldiers were stopped by a man near one of the small trees. Wearing a simple black kimono and slippers, having a short sword by his side. He was short for a man only five-foot six. He had spiky golden-hair with bangs that covered his forehead, blue-eyes and whiskers marks on his face.

There was no headband or identifying village symbol or country symbol.

"So Mizukage decided to go to the capital instead of going to the Mist himself… That was a bad move." The man insulted their leader to their faces.

"I'll ask again, who the fuck are you?" Jinpachi yelled as he swung a sword that exploded the air itself.

"Oh, will I be able to witness a third swordsman of the Mist fall before my eyes? Anyways, name's Uzumaki Naruto…" the man who was called Naruto continued to insult them, saying that this was the last time they were to be alive and they should pray to their loved ones first and not regret it later.

Jinpachi raged and engaged. For more than five minutes the man named Naruto evaded his attacks and then a hand came from behind the man and pierced his throat with the small blade, another hand came from the shoulder of the golden-haired man and pierced Jinpachi's chest.

Another, another and another. Jinpachi's body was full of holes as if he were attacked by a phantom army while Naruto sat there with a smile. Naruto grabbed the fallen Exploding blade and sheathed it behind his kimono.

"You guys are unlucky…" Naruto faced the hundred elite jonin with a smile, and as if a mirage appeared, more than three hundred Naruto's divided from the same person, as if they were seeing a broken mirror. It was a cloning jutsu, one too advanced for words, there was no hand signs, no clouds of smoke and no sound, one Naruto turned into three hundred faster than one could blink. An army that outmatched every single Mist ninja had arrived.

"Have you given your loved ones your prayers?" The Naruto at the center tilted his head.

"Because you are going to die here…" He finished as fear settled in that foggy marsh.

* * *

**XOX**

* * *

Yagura and his forces arrived in Hongawa after a full marathonic sprint, again they found those blank masked ninja who were inciting the crowd of rioters. Most of the samurai and all of the shinobi on the capital were dead by the time Yagura arrived, that only stoked Yagura's fury even more.

Reclaiming the capital from these bastards took more than he would have liked but in the end the coward Daimyo and his family was safe.

"O—Oh, Yagura-san what a timely arrival, you are to protect me and my family as a personal bodyguard u—until everything is over." The fat lord said on his throne at the defaced castle.

Yagura burst a blood vessel in frustration, he did not have time to deal with a pampered lord right now, there was a mounting attack towards his Mist village from the south and he did not have time to babysit his lord any longer.

He left a few of his trusted troops behind while guarding the lord within a safe room in Hongawa while he headed towards Mist with the remainder of his troops. Hopefully his last seven swordsman of the mist, Jinpachi had already arrived and fortified Mist.

* * *

**XOX**

* * *

Back on the west, port city of Naranokawa, the burned corpses of the attackers started raising themselves and regenerating as if they hadn't died. The few leftover jonin turned around to see them before a golden ball reached their heads and their bodies exploded. The blank mask people now had their true power revealed, clones of unbelievable power and immortality.

This was one of Naruto's unreal enhancements to the basic shadow clone technique.

The blank masks invaded Naranokawa again and in record time they conquered the port city from the hands of Yagura's faction while the Mizukage himself was blindly rushing to nowhere. Goat Mask who was hiding in the shadows arrived near one of the clones and both went amused into the city as they 'purchased' every single real estate and large businesses here, taking total control of transport in Water Country, every single boat company and the largest port itself was now under the Zodiacs control.

Meanwhile back in Hongawa where Yagura had just left for the Mist, the blank masks that were killed had risen again and in less than an hour assassinated every single shinobi in the city, as well as murdered the lord along with his family. Again taking control of the castle and issuing orders with the guise of the Daimyo, he also took control of the stone city of Hongawa.

Two of the most important locations in the country were seized by the Zodiacs while Yagura rushed blindly to the marshes before he arrived in Mist… there Yagura would face the final battle.

* * *

**XOX**

* * *

Karatachi Yagura led his last squadron of soldiers through the marsh, his warriors were already exhausted; they had run throughout the country twice at this point without any rest as the enemy just took and took more territories without any prior notice or suspicion. Some took their moment to voice their displeasure at the lack of information and how badly they've been misled these past couple of days.

That man who complained was cut in half from a pressurized water whip running faster than hypersonic speeds, that water came from Yagura, as the men looked at their comrade's upper body sliding like cut butter, the blood had a splashing sound as if the two midsections were like a hamburger and the center was like ketchup. The man had wide eyes and paralyzed pupils as he was bisected by his leader. And Yagura himself hadn't even turned to face him, he was still in front of them, with his black staff there silently.

The men looked at their dead comrade and saw Yagura turning his head slightly to stare them with his pink eyes, they turned red and Yagura's pupil slanted like a cat's. They had forgotten how monstrous and cruel their leader was. That glower was a clear warning not to grumble any longer.

However a salvo of kunai made them prepare for battle. They were being sieged from the front. But they were so close to Mist village, the only answer was if the rebels had taken the hidden village. Yagura launched a storm at the front but the ninja were well prepared and avoided it. Yagura could see it, these were the rebels… right in front of his own village.

He could see a woman with a blue dress and auburn hair, he could see the traitorous young swordsman of the mist, with blue hair and glass frames around his eyes. He could see the man who had a Byakugan replaced with his left eyes. These were certainly the rebels and they were being led by the auburn woman — Terumi Mei…

The battle was in the marshes, they were being sieged by Mei's melting mist and her long-range shots of lava. Yagura gave it all the got as the battle was of long-range reach amidst low foliage and tiny trees around the watery marshes. A deep fog was settling in as his soldiers expertly hid and struck at the rebels.

"You made a large mistake…" A man said next to him. Yagura turned to look at who he was and there was a blond man, not from here, his features were very similar to those of the Fourth Hokage.

"You, who are you?"

"Uzumaki Naruto…" he said while bored.

"Uzumaki?!" Yagura exclaimed, while also feeling frustrations at the man's lackadaisical attitude.

Yagura prepared his own black staff as he prepared for battle. But the man called Naruto shook his head in disapproval.

"You made a large mistake by trying to return to Mist village. It was already captured by the time you arrived in Hongawa…"

"Impossible, I sent Jinpachi to protect the village."

Naruto explained that would have worked, had he not ambushed the loyal swordsman, to this Naruto presented the dead man's Explosive blade and tossed it in the shallow waters of the marshes.

Yagura furrowed his brow as chakra started to prevail in the atmosphere, as two peak ninja faced each other.

Naruto told him, that the best move after Hongawa was returning to the Honzuki pass and bunkering down there, there the Mizukage could survive a few weeks of sieging and plan an escape from the country, but now Yagura had nowhere left, he was pincered from all sides. There was a dozen clones rushing from the port city to the pass to attack it from behind. There was a dozen clones securing the capital of Hongawa and Mist village was already conquered.

There was nowhere left to go but the grave for Yagura and his blood prejudiced bunch.

They would all die here.

If the new rasengan was an unstopped ball of destruction, then the shadow clones were an inevitable, invincible army, unable to be distinguished from normal people other than good old strict accounting… but all shinobi cared about was chakra sensing and advanced skills of detection, they often forgot about the most basic of things.

Naruto formed a golden ball and rushed to the Mizukage to end all of this, but the tiny Mizukage surprised him, Yagura pulled the water up with his staff, forming a mirror of water, and from it, an identical form was formed, with the same rasengan, Naruto met his reflection and the attacks canceled each other.

Naruto was impressed.

Something could really stop his rasengan, even if it were himself doing the stopping.

Yagura also had launched a conjunction attack with water drills and a dragon of water above while the man himself rushed with a water blade over his black staff.

"That's nice, but mistaken…" Naruto said as the water drills arrived from every direction, and a water dragon loomed above, all moving faster than sound.

Naruto only raised his hand as water splashed all around him, while a second Naruto arrived near Yagura, from behind, using just a short blade he almost pierced Yagura's nape before Yagura turned to block the attack from reaching his head with his black staff.

Yagura was amazed and a bit frustrated, the blond man in front of him matched his speed and his own strength, blow for blow as they entered a dance of brutality only the absolute top dogs of the whole continent could enter. Not even that little bitch Terumi Mei could match either of them in this dance as she watched from afar, Yagura thought.

Yagura was frustrated in a sense that he could not deal a decisive close combat blow as Naruto always stuck by him, not relenting, and not letting Yagura maintain distance.

Then, Naruto lunged with the short sword again with many openings for a counter.

Yagura was ready to parry it and strike the blond shinobi. "Hah, that attack won't wor—" however as Yagura said this, as if dozens of hands were summoned on top of each other, dozens of short swords were lunged by Naruto.

Yagura opened his eyes to their maximum, that attack could not be blocked nor parried, in the last moments the Mizukage avoided by rolling on the shallow water, making a wave and appearing thirty feet away, his right hand held his staff and his left was holding his shoulder which was bleeding heavily, it was like he was struck with a lance so there was a massive hole, the size of a coin going straight through it, any lower and it would have punctured his lung.

"What was that?" Yagura wondered. _It was like I was attacked by a hundred phantom lunges originating from the same arm of his, It couldn't have been speed, the hands all attacked at the same time, with no delay between._

However Naruto didn't let the Mizukage Yagura think at all, he rushed again and tried a piercing strike with the short blade, and again, out of nowhere, hundreds and hundreds of 'phantom' arms were summoned.

"You piece of—"

Yagura avoided it, losing half his left-side hair but then came a kick from Naruto's leg from the side and again Yagura dodged but then came two dozen other legs from different angles and hit him full on the side of belly, just before the ribs with enough force to crack a mountain in half. But Yagura was both the Mizukage and the Jinchuuriki of the three tails. He counterattacked, by performing a wind blade from the front that could cut through even the hardest metal and then he summoned a whirlpool for the blond to stay in place.

However Naruto just smiled and vanished, another Naruto appeared a few twenty feet away from the whirlpool and looked down on Yagura.

Yagura was losing it, not ever in the last twenty years ago he felt this angry, not even when his swordsmen betrayed him and left, leaving only Jinpachi loyal to him.

Yagura was losing it all, his men were dying to the rebels, if he did not finish it now, then it would only cause him more headache

"Ahh, this is enough! This is en**ough!**" He spit blood and glared, Yagura summoned the power from the beast sealed, his skin turned blood red, and then was shed, it was like the air itself was peeling his skin, piece by piece, his eyes turned blood red, and then three tails were summoned from behind.

Then his eyes turned white and the muscles beneath looked like strands of blood red lava swirling around like pure violence, behind his back, a turtle shell was formed of his blood.

The transformed Yagura rushed faster and faster, blowing the pool of water, superheating it to extremes and transforming it to hot vapor that heated the marshes, and reached Naruto and pierced him with his hand, from chest to back, right smack center.

However the transformed Yagura's attack was not over, from the wound, keratin crusts were escaping from Naruto's wound and turning the body into a shell itself, there was often stories of a woman with snake hair turning men into stone, however instead of stone, it was a living shell made of microbes, that produced neurotoxins that would permanently disable anyone and those microbes would slowly in months decompose what was inside without leaving a trace. That was Yagura's power.

Yagura laughed maniacally as he was influenced by both his rage and his beast's hatred.

"Is that all a Jinchuuriki is capable of, I am disappointed…" Another Naruto arrived from behind and kicked the shallow water up. as if he was dribbling a ball up, and from beneath the water, the Explosive sword arose.

_This was the point where he threw Jinpachi-s bla—_ Yagura had no time to think—

Even enhanced by the beast's power up to three tails, Yagura could not react as Naruto picked the blade with his right hand and swung right on his face, and then a pure shockwave blast of many thousands of tags on that blade was heard. The blast was so large it caught the humid small trees of fire as smoke enveloped the area, drying the previous damp fog.

A shower of water cleaned the view, and what was left was a half covered Mizukage with the power of the beast, the part that was not covered was burned up so badly it was almost charred. He let out the only scream of pain necessary. "**Ahhh**hhhhhhhh!"

Even so, Yagura was the fourth Mizukage, even in this desperate situation where if he opened his mouth, only a scream of pain would be let out, he still had the mental fortitude to rationalize and think. Even so his body was shuddering with cold and pain. _H—He used the maximum output of the Explosive sword, that means he didn't know how to use it correctly, that means he's not in one piece either, what a fool._ The blade's maximum output was a last resort for its user, as a means to take the enemy with them to hell.

However reality was not kind to Yagura.

"'What a fool, sacrificed himself to take me out…' is that what you're thinking?" A voice near Yagura arrived, it was the blond man named Naruto.

_How is he here?!_

"Sorry, that was a clone, see?"

Naruto pointed at the place of explosion, and a body lifted from the water, it was the clone, it was full of blood and half its side was like a carcass at a meat shop, full of red liquid covering it.

However it was still moving.

Then it started regenerating.

_Don't tell me…_

Then there were two Naruto's in the wide marshes, and Yagura on the shallow water, fully on the floor.

The clone of Naruto regenerated; it wasn't dead.

"Oh yeah, all those white masks you 'killed' all over the country, they were my clones, however right now all of them are regenerated and are now seizing your precious cities. Even the Daimyo you worked so hard to protect is now dead on the floor of his own castle."

Yagura for the first time despaired, what kind of absolute monster was he actually fighting here?

Despite Yagura's mind breaking apart, Naruto continued to talk. "They are linked to me; therefore I can just send a boost of chakra through the link and they regenerate on their own, even if they receive life-threatening injuries they don't disappear anymore unless I will it, it's quite a convenient technique, after all the clones have 100% of my power and are functionally immortal… quite a nice improvement don't you think?"

_So that was the secret for the phantom arms, it wasn't an illusion, it was dozens of clones behind him striking at the same time, Immortal clones running amok all over the country, what kind of joke is this?_

Even so, Yagura…

_Please help me, Three-Tails._

**_Yes, let me do this… Yagura._ ** A deep voice rumbled from within, despondent but confident.

Uzumaki Naruto who was looking at the Mizukage, defeated and almost drowning in the shallow water, Naruto raised a brow at suddenly feeling a chill, not even the Mizukage's Jinchuuriki state could produce the hair-standing feeling on Naruto but then an explosion of power surged from Yagura.

Then….

* * *

**XOX**

* * *

Naruto blinked and the real world was entirely replaced.

He was standing on a total black sea, with a black horizon and a black sky… nothing was here.

An illusion perhaps?

Then he saw the Three-Tails in front of him. _It's really massive. I can see how it causes fear and makes armies tremble._ He was standing directly in front of a tailed beast, resembling a titanic turtle, with gray crab-like shells and spikes all over his back and sides, the face of the beast was concealed between a protruded jaw and forehead, it's eyes were deep red and his interior was like an exposed red muscle. Three tails swung from behind.

Behind Naruto was the cage, the golden bars with a seal, and two red eyes belonging to a fox, both these beasts had made a mental connection and were now criticizing him within his mind. Naruto saw that he was in danger here, this was his mind, his soul, they were constructs made out of chakra, if they died here then they would just reform, if he died here, then his soul would be deleted from the cycle of reincarnation.

However even with tailed beasts here, he did not feel like he could lose… Even so seeing these _pieces of shit_ rummaging around his mind, his memories, insulting his life, insulting him, everything about him, made him snap, the unprofessional side, the angry side, the side that hated this situation surfaced from Naruto, he wanted to drag both of these beasts and painfully _kill_ them both and when they reformed he would be there to _kill _them again. That's how badly Naruto hated these beings.

"When are you going to stand there and talk about nothing? Didn't the poor, poor, weak Yagura call for your help? Aren't you going to try and kill me?" Naruto taunted as ugly feelings surged through his chest.

The three tails turned his gaze downward, Naruto truly was an ant when comparing sizes with these titanic beings, but still, he felt like he could never lose.

**"You are but a brat, swimming in the wide sea, without a destination." ** The three tails answered with a dry tone as if he knew everything, as if he told Naruto that his life amounted to nothing.

Something broke, something snapped, he felt something being triggered in his heart. _Piece of fu—_

Naruto smiled; however it was a mocking one as he looked the three tails, not shying away. He never felt such anger before, not since Sasuke, in fact this took the fu— cake.

"There it goes again, another self-important bastard that thinks that just by meeting me for a few hours thinks they know everything, every single thing about who I am!"

Naruto was now shouting in a low commanding voice, Naruto did not care, he was going to make his mind heard for these self-important beasts who thought they were strong. "And what about you, three tails! talking about such philosophical things while your bastard of a vessel went on and eugenics crusade, killing children, destroying families, systematically erasing lives of people who did not deserve it!"

_Let me guess, oh I did not agree to those things, he was kind to me… blah blah. The same thing again, while Yagura destroyed Haku's life from the moment he was born?!_

The three tails spoke with a more reserved tone, as if he was never ever rebuked in his entire life. **"I cannot condone his actions, but Yagura… he accepted me, that's more than you humans ever could. Look at you now gold brat, what do you see behind you, in that cage?"**

_I'm tired of hearing this horseshit, I'm tired!_ Naruto spent this whole year learning and learning and learning and this was what these beasts had? Beast who lived for millennia, this was it?! Just kids who were used to being attacked and not talked down to. Well, Naruto would gladly do a dressing down with how furious he actually was becoming here.

"What I see? WHAT I SEEEEE?! I see the biggest monster of them all, a bastard Nine-tails who brazenly destroyed my village before being sealed into me, and what, was I the only one to be chosen?! I KNOW! Because every baby born that day and every baby who was born but a week before had died because of this piece of shit poisonous chakra invading and poisoning the atmosphere of the Leaf!"

Naruto did not see the shadowy Nine-tails behind the bars shake its head.

It was true, it was strange that no other baby was chosen other than his Uzumaki origins and resistance to the tailed beast's toxic chakra, but the story was not kind, every single baby born on that day, and every single baby born within a week had died that night, the hospitals were filled with baby cadavers, poisoned and then developing organ failure, he knew, Naruto researched it before leaving, he needed to know exactly why people really hated the Nine-tails and this was the most horrifying reason, and it was not just a quick thing, babies born that year who weren't resilient as part of being born of a clan had a 20% higher chance of developing cancer or other developed disease, mothers who were pregnant firstly, had a chance of having a stillborn, if the fetus didn't die then there was a chance of they being born with congenital diseases. The Nine-tails did not just kill the older veteran generation, it also crippled the next.

Therefore Naruto would not forgive the being jailed on his abdomen, not now nor ever.

**"You humans caused this, all of this, now you blame us, curse us and hate us with every waking moment, but we will survive in the end, humans won't!" **The three tails announced.

"Then you default the blame on humans alone, huh? Let me ask, what did you do, what did you ever do with your long-lived life?"

At this the beast went silent.

_Figures. At least I'm learning, at least I'm walking towards my dream, they sat on their asses for millennia and did nothing with their lives, pieces of garbage like that aren't qualified to criticize me._

"Enough of this… any last words?"

**"You smell like 'him', but you are as far down as possible from him… Just prancing around with your power thinking that clever tactics are going to resolve everything." **At this the beast of three tails looked down on Naruto, saying that his clone technique would not work here, as nifty as immortal clones were, it would not damage his hide. Naruto's eyes turned completely dull, his eyes were cold and blue like an elegantly-colored marble.

"I feel bad for Yagura, he had the perfect counter for my strongest technique, so I had to use my clones as I attacked him … but you know, you don't have that perfect counter, do you?"

It was the third time the tailed beasts felt fear, the second was when humans discovered the sealing methods. There was something fundamentally broken within the boy, as if there was a wealth of hatred within him that he kept hidden from everyone in his daily life, and only now was revealing to them who were in a closed space like his mind, where no one could watch, where no one could see.

The three tails instinctively charged a beast ball at the boy, intending on killing him immediately, an incredibly dense ball was formed in its jaw, with the power to vaporize a mountain, heavy and dense, however it was shot faster than massively hypersonic speeds. The black sea turned into a downside curve as water moved out of the way because of pure gravity and the splashes of water that reached the ball were erased as a liquid and immediately turned into vapor, which immediately turned into plasma.

That was the kind of attack a beast ball was, if trained enough even a Jinchuuriki was able to perform it. Yagura was capable of it but lost immediately to Naruto's clever attack with the clones, before he could even entertain of charging such an attack.

However the three-tails fired it, and it fast approached Naruto, but the golden haired boy turned his head behind and stared at the golden cage and gave a menacing look at the Nine-tails, a look that implicitly said to 'don't dare look away'.

Naruto turned his head and looked at the blackness approaching with a gentle smile.

The shockwaves were blowing his hair back and he truly smiled, warmly.

He raised just one hand.

Just a tiny little hand at the titanic attack.

A tiny golden ball was formed in that small hand, the golden ball was barely larger than a baseball.

The titanic beast ball met the golden ball.

…

And the world was over.

At least, that's what it felt like. For the creatures calling themselves the strongest.

The three tails was completely catatonic, its biggest attack was shattered like glass against the advent of that tiny little golden ball, its massive attack that unleashed a hundred times more chakra than the strongest humans to roam the earth, that ball had less chakra in it then the chakra the human used to make those immortal clones.

This wasn't possible, the Three tails had thousands of times more chakra in its attack, then why, why did the little human shatter it without any effort?

What was this power?

"In a strange kind of way, I also spent a millennia on this earth, and I spent every single moment of that time on just this one technique, if you think a big blast of chakra is going to beat it, then you are delusional, beast!" Naruto charged, on his hand was the same peerless ball of golden chakra.

The beast could not understand; however he summoned his deadly aura of chakra around his shell and spun his body faster the massively hypersonic speeds to meet the little human's charge head on, his shell was unbeatable. **"Die human!"**

"So is this what you thought of. This was boring until the end." Naruto whispered, the Nine-tails widened its eyes but then closed, it was painfully obvious what the result would be, the fox was a way more experienced fighter than the both outside his golden cage, however he did not shout, he did not intervene, even when his sibling's life was on the line.

Naruto and the beast met and instantaneously, 85% of the tailed beast body was erased, completely.

Just the head was blown away. **"You…" **the three tails started to speak.

"Enough, I don't care…" Naruto appeared immediately in front of the beast, with the same golden ball still in its palm, that golden ball that deflected it all and ended the last remaining piece of the beast.

* * *

**XOX**

* * *

Naruto sighed. He stood in the middle of the black sea as it still waved with the previously powerful attacks. The fourteen-year-old looked at the pure black sky, this tiny human compared to these titan legends of old, had beaten one of them completely, not even in his truly first stages of life. Undoubtedly, Naruto felt a sense of accomplishment, if he could beat a tailed beast this easy, then he profoundly underestimated himself.

Even after spending every day of these six months with more than ten thousand clones, he felt like he was still behind everyone. Naruto had to truly thank Jiraiya for making sure he would invest his time improving on his already learned techniques, if he spent his time learning trivial hand signs for useless techniques he wouldn't be able to beat a Kage and a tailed beast in one go, completely unharmed.

Everything was fluid with enough time invested, even the rigid rules behind the ninja techniques taught, deconstruct it, reverse-engineer it and see what can be improved instead of having a thousand useless _weak_ jutsu on the tip of his tongue and hesitate on choosing. No offense to Kakashi or to the Third. But it truly wasn't Naruto's style.

That was why Naruto now ended up with immortal clones and an absolute defense and offense attack such as his tiny golden rasengan which barely used any chakra and could be summoned in at a relativistic speed.

Naruto turned around, and there it was, the damn fox looking at him, impressed but unshaken. Naruto had no misconceptions, that beast behind the golden bars could kill the three tails as fast or faster than him, he knew that the fox was still far ahead but now Naruto knew, the fox was beatable, he had proven it here.

**"You didn't change, not since you became a ninja, right now you're just an aimless wandering mess just like you were back then, you're more like us than you realize, but then again you are a human, you'll never be like us, just another odious human, even your mother and ancestors were better, and that bitch kept me crucified on a ball of lava with stakes on my body. Go on then, wander your life without purpose for your actions and go die in a ditch somewhere once old age arrives."**

"You and the three tails were having such a cozy talk earlier, as a 14-year-old boy, let me enlighten you to what this child sees… you're just a wandering mass of hatred, where were you before you were sealed inside of humans… roaming the land for what? Food for a tailed beast made of chakra that's immortal? Don't kid yourself, you had all the time in the world, you had all the power in the world… AND YOU DID NOTHING! At least I have dreams of helping Tsunade, becoming Hokage and making the village a better place! And You. Don't. Get. To. Condemn Meeeeeee!"

Naruto approached and bashed his forehead on the bars, making a loud sound while stared at those red eyes.

**"'Becoming Hokage?' 'Helping out that blond tits woman who you always dream about having in your bed?' if those are your goals then you're dumber than I thought, you're shallow Uzumaki Naruto, there is nothing there, if you think you're complex or important than it's a lie, there is nothing of substance to you, nothing! NOTHING!"**

Both were stubborn to a fault, both would never see each other eye to eye, they were too set in their ways, and both were obstacles to what the other wanted. The Nine-tails wanted its freedom and Naruto wanted to be free of the label of demon. In the end, this tale would conclude with one killing the other, it was already written in stone.

"I've trained hard and got myself power to never depend on you again, this is the last time we'll talk before the inevitable end… Goodbye Kyuubi."

The Nine-tails mocked him.** "Oh, but you still depend on me, you fully utilize the chakra that gets drained by the seal and become yours, and you still use my regeneration to survive and train your body, your 'power' is a lie, you took the advantages of having me sealed in you and made it your _'power'_ but everyone who hears of this will call you a loser, you'll never escape the label you've been saddled with and you'll depend on my power until the day you die."**

If the Nine-tails could take the chakra and the passive regeneration away it would, if it could cripple Naruto, then it would, it would be highly amusing to see this child die in the most humiliating way, even if it meant a decade of waiting to be reborn in the world.

However the Nine-tails lamented that it could not interfere and inflict pain until the child foolishly challenges it in the future.

Naruto closed his eyes in pure fury and anguish. "I'm done, I don't want to see your face… there is nothing to say or tell, in the end, we can't come to an understanding, and that is fine, I've never intended to understand the monster who killed my parents in the first place…"

**"Then go on, use your 'power' which you're so _proud of_ and use it to resolve your problems by killing everyone who is your enemy, like I always did. Don't be surprised when you're left alone again once you reach the 'top', child."**

* * *

**XOX**

* * *

As he returned to the real world, he calmed down, he was uncharacteristically furious after the meeting with both the Three-tails and Nine tails, as his heart rate and eyes turned back to a normal pleasant look, he walked on the foggy marshes towards Yagura.

The three tails was dead and gone, for another two to three years according to their experiences of reformation. The only thing left was the body of the Mizukage, Karatachi Yagura, the man was dead.

He crouched down and picked the body from the water before it could drown, as he did so he spotted something strange, a red tint on the boy's pink eyes, the red tint faded away and Naruto raised an eyebrow.

Karatachi Yagura was a man who waged his cleansing of bloodlines since before the third world war, it had been a long time, and there was no way the people of Water Country who had been in complete misery under his rule would let the man live. Naruto dealing the deathblow with a single quick rasengan was the best end, otherwise Yagura's execution would be one of public humiliation and torturous death.

Naruto did not want for Mei-chan to go down this route.

After lugging around Yagura's dead body on his back, he went to meet up with the leaders of the rebel faction, Terumī Mei, a tall slender woman with fair creamy skin, with green eyes, however her most prominent feature was her auburn long hair that hid one of her eyes and reached her ankles, she also was a wielder of two different bloodlines, essentially she held power over Lava and Boil, making a fight against her extremely dangerous for any other shinobi who wasn't an S-ranked ninja.

She held two close confidants who aided her in the past few years, a surly man named Ao who wielded a hidden Byakugan, obviously stolen from a dead body, but Naruto did not ask. It was not in his mission parameters for any retrieval of any doujutsu in the Water country, and the ones who really really cared would be the old farts at the Hyuuga clan. Naruto doubted that Tsunade would tell those bastards anything of value. A single eye outside the village wasn't to be freaked out about but seeing Ao skit about around him and try to hide it with the eyepatch was a bit funny.

Ao was the first guy Naruto met from the resistance, he was a man who was very skeptical about him and hated Naruto from the very beginning, however as the efforts of liberating the country went on in these couple of weeks the surly veteran became more accepting of Naruto as the time went on, and as the victory against the Mizukage drew near, the man was almost like an approving uncle.

There was also a member of the seven swordsman here, or at least an apprentice, he was called Chōjūrō and wielded the Great Twin blades capable of storing the user's chakra and unleashing it in various different molds, he had serrated teeth like his contemporaries and was a bit on the young side, being 16-years-old, not like Naruto could talk since he was still two years younger than the boy. As for their relationship, it was one of one-sided envy, Chōjūrō was not agreeable to Naruto's presence after a few weeks, firstly because Naruto was magnitudes higher in power and still two years younger — Just his presence in the country was enough to turn the tides of war completely under their favor. Naruto was that kind of strategic weapon, fully utilizing his immortal clones to do the bidding everywhere in the country. And secondly Chōjūrō did not like Naruto's presence because of the intimate relationship Naruto had with Terumī Mei.

The war raised the tension in one's person and both found a way of relieving tension in each other. Terumī Mei and Uzumaki Naruto, their relationship was complicated, there were lustful feelings, there were romantic feelings, but both were still professional shinobi who were completely loyal to their respective countries.

For the past six months since he was in this training trip with Jiraiya, the man always made Naruto sleep in brothels. With usually three or four girls, if he were well known in the establishment, then sometimes the whole roster of girls would want sleep with him. He was addicted to sex since then and could not go one or two days without a woman in his bed to keep him company, it was great that Mei came to his bed so easily.

* * *

**XOX**

* * *

There was a complete celebration afterwards, Goat Mask was happy that the boy with blond hair was able to finish the S-rank mission so fast, this war had been happening for ages and to have it so quickly resolved was a wonder. Tsunade-sama was right to choose Uzumaki Naruto to be the next Dragon, he would surely bring prosperity back to the Fire Country.

To complete an S-rank mission issued by the Leaf Village, that was something out of legend, something only heard of from people like the Second Hokage, Senju Tobirama who was able to cripple the Lightning nation at the time with the battle at the Frost valley before he took the seat, or the Third Hokage Sarutobi Hiruzen, who stopped Earth in the first war with the siege of Azuchi fortress before Tobirama died.

Or the Fourth Hokage, which was able to boast of two completed S-rank missions, something unheard of. He was able to fully control a four-way conflict at the legendary battle of the Kannabi bridge, and singlehandedly was able to end the entire world war at the battle of Kyushuri Plains where he allegedly killed one thousand Shinobi of the Earth in less than a second. Even those S-rank Shinobi that the Earth boasted were slain in just one move. The Yellow flash was a godlike name even today.

And now a boy of fourteen-years-old ranked within those legendary names.

Goat Mask jumped from the trees in this dark wood just south of Hongawa, the capital of Water country and then met with those individuals reported from Naruto's list, some of the loyalist had escaped south and were trying to leave the country, and for peace to be achieved, they had to be executed.

The boy had already given Goat Mask a sizable amount of real estate in Water country, beneath the noses of the rebels, so doing a favor like this was nothing. Goat Mask was an older middle-aged gentleman who repaid his debts.

Reaching almost seven-foot-tall he arrived at the camp, where twenty or so loyalist still remained, the idiots prepared to attack, however all weaponry and explosives thrown at him, bounced off his skin.

Goat Mask summoned a giant sword, which was more like a slab of metal, than an intrinsically crafted sword, weighting just over a ton.

He roared and swung down.

The world was split in half.

Everything was rewritten by just one strike.

Or at least that's what if felt like for the twenty or so loyalists who were preparing to finish off the Goat Mask. Their flimsy bodies were thrown in the air by the pure shockwave.

The shockwave converged and bounced off an invisible barrier and crushed the twenty bodies who were launched in the air. The bodies were like a red jam, still a bit thick but completely blended, their organs and bones were triturated by the bouncing shockwave and they were no more, as they fell to the ground they were just clumps of ketchup on the rocks.

Goat Mask's entire right hand was red and yellow like lava, that was caused by the amount of seals written on his arm which quickly disappeared. His fighting style was combining both fading ink seals with physical martial arts, looking at the area he swung his blade, the fissure was not much larger than 20 meters forward, so the world was not split in two as the loyalist felt before their deaths.

His strikes were peculiar in that the seals would amplify the shockwaves of his physical attacks and multiplied that to the absolute extreme. Then a seal would form a bubble around the area, that bounced the shockwave produced infinitely. The shockwave would affect the victim multiple times until the person died.

Of course for such a fighting style to work, he needed to be able to produce a sufficiently powerful shockwave with his own physical brawn, that's why he had this powerfully muscular build and had such a slab of heavy metal in his hand.

Such a peculiar fighting style using both martial arts and seals was rare, perhaps Goat Mask was the only one back in the Leaf, and it earned him the rank of a Zodiac, in service of the Hokage, Zodiacs were administrators that controlled the economy in other countries, they were the 'rulers behind the shadow of Fire', of course it was all for the benefit of Konoha as a whole.

However there was never a full roster of Zodiacs in a generation. Right now there were only four active members. Goat, Monkey, Rooster and Snake… Tsunade was still pondering on who to add for Tiger and Dog… and of course the Dragon seat was to be filled by Uzumaki Naruto himself.

Goat Mask had to chuckle, the defeat of a Kage would reach the world soon, and Naruto would not be able to escape the buzz, the boy would soon find himself wanted in the famous bingo book.

As Goat Mask returned to Hongawa, he predicted that Naruto would likely fill the position of Dragon next year or so.

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**XOX**

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Naruto, after all the confusion of the end of the civil war, quietly, or should be said… normally exited the country by taking a boat in Naranokawa.

As he looked to the sea, he wondered about some things, about what he truly wanted from his special position as a helper to the Zodiacs and being directly under Tsunade's commands.

What did he want to do?

What did she want to do?

Uzumaki and Senju…

As he watched the waves crash onto the sailing boat, as the crewmembers talked to him with a smile after the civil war had finally ended, he knew that this country breathed a sigh of relief that was waited on for more than twenty years, his involvement in the country had been right, his tactics, even if they were dirty had helped, this was how a shinobi should act… right?

He saw the unbridled hatred and stubbornness in the loyalists and those near Yagura, even as he fought the boy, he saw the hatred in his glazed pink eyes.

Quickly and efficiently eliminating sources of conflict from the shadows was the best tactic.

Permanently removing elements that caused strife and stifled the peace was obligatory… that was the correct way, right?

"That all sounds like authoritarian talk to me…" he whispered as he started having doubts.

As he traveled to a certain country that marked his life — Wave country.

He pondered.

He wanted to know, he needed to know who his parents were. He knew that both Jiraiya and Tsunade had the knowledge, they were dangling that information right on his face and he was tired of it, he was already strong enough to protect himself, no matter who his parents were.

_I'm meeting Jiraiya-sensei again soon, we're finally going to the land of my ancestors… Whirlpool — This time I'll make him finally spill the truth._

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_**Review Corner~**_

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**_akune:_**

I wanted to do this since forever, this chapter was a bit more technical and was from the point of view of the Mizukage, tell me if you liked it.

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_**Lifelessman; RollingFire; Uday Sra:**_

I hope you continue liking this story and thanks for the support.

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**_erozbrozz:_**

What are the things that stand out about this fic? Is it the new way I tackled the training and the way I made Naruto powerful instead of bloating him with a billion different bloodlines and jutsu? Or the way I introduced more politicking and seinen aspects to a shounen series?

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**Author's notes**

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Another A.U arc, I always wanted to tackle the Mist civil war I see so much in the fandom. This chapter is super-technical with different locations around the country and a lot of moving pieces on the board. So it wouldn't be weird to make a bunch of chapters about it.

In the first place, I decided I would make this single arc an epic-length and 15 chapters long, but I don't want this fic to be a million words long, I am shooting for something like 3150.000+ words long.

So I made a resolution, every single chapter will be a full complete arc. And for it, I had to sacrifice the point of view of the rebels. As I started to write the strategy for Naruto to win, I decided to focus instead on Yagura and leave the plans in the dark so as to surprise the reader.

And I am serious when it comes to the Godlike tag, therefore Naruto killed the Three-tails in one single blow.

There won't be people beating Naruto to the ground any time soon, he's just 14 years-old and by the time someone faces him he will be so above them in power it won't be funny. This fic is focused more on worldbuilding, politicking, seinen, Naruto's mental state and indecision of what's the best choice. He will always be the strongest piece on the board therefore battles won't be the absolute priority.

I hope you understand this going forward.

**This series won't focus on who can defeat Naruto but there are three people that can defeat the 14-year-old Naruto in this chapter:**

**Obito, is physically stronger and faster, has wood style, and intangibility. He's too much for the current Naruto.**

**Itachi, only due to Tsukuyomi(current Naruto is still weak and not immune to Genjutsu), if Itachi didn't have it then he would lose 10 out of 10 times, even using his broken Susanoo with Yata mirror and Tosuka blade, _Itachi would still lose._**

**Kurama(nine-tails), due to sheer power, speed and experience.**

Oh and one last thing:

**NO OTSUTSUKI BULLSHIT!**

They don't exist in this fic, Kaguya was just a human princess who ate the fruit, there are no aliens here... no bullshit clan scouring the universe or whatnot, fuck that!

Kaguya's tale was done and she was sealed by her sons who lived on earth, not the moon, end of story.

In this fic Zetsu is Madara's will, not some super-mastermind that engineered every single thing for his mother nuh-uh. The last antagonist will be Madara or Obito.

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**Don't forget to follow or favorite if you want to be alerted to new chapters!**


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